Nature’s Temptations in Ridgefield, CT

The Commercial and Social Space of Nature’s Temptations in Downtown Ridgefield, CT

I spent this past Thanksgiving weekend at home in Ridgefield, CT. During my time at home, I visited a local health food store, Nature’s Temptations, which is located off  Main Street in the center of town. Nature’s Temptations is a relatively small health food store, providing locally grown organic produce, specific health foods, dietary supplements and brands typically not found in commercial supermarkets and also offers a deli, catering business, and a juice bar. The goods and services offered by Nature’s Temptations attracts a niche market of health-conscious individuals, including avid gym-goers and those with strict diets. Many of the products sold at Nature’s Temptations are pricey because they offer specialized high quality products packaged in small quantities, as opposed value-oriented mass-market commercial products that are sold for lower prices in higher volumes at larger supermarkets and big-box stores, such as Stop-and-Shop and Costco. Due to the product specialization and the higher price of goods, Nature’s Temptations typically attracts consumers of high socioeconomic status who are generally highly educated and more health-conscious individuals.

After interviewing an employee with 15 years of experience at Nature’s Temptations, I found that many of the shoppers who frequent Nature’s Temptations are from the local area, with most of them living within a 10 mile radius. Ridgefield is known as a suburban family town, comprised of both young and old families, as well as a smaller population of millennials that work in the local service industry and older retirees that live with/near younger family members. The majority of Nature’s Temptations customer base is made up of local moms doing food shopping for their families, young health-conscious millennials, and older retirees that are seeking natural health remedies to prevent or treat medical problems. Many of these customers are from the local or immediate area, with some of the younger customer demographic visiting Nature’s Temptations from neighboring shops downtown. Many of these customers walk over during their lunch break to grab a sandwich from the deli or a healthy drink from the juice bar. The younger population of millennials that frequents Nature’s Temptations is generally of lower socioeconomic status, as many of them are still attending college or just out of college with their first job. Although many millennial customers are on a budget, they are a more health conscious population and are therefore more inclined to buy trendier health foods as opposed to outdated processed foods from other providers.

Over the past decade there has been a change in consumer preferences that has shifted toward minimally processed and locally grown organic foods. This change in preferences has increased demand for health foods, resulting in increased business and expansion for Nature’s Temptations over the past few years. Small local businesses such as Nature’s Temptations are not the only businesses that have reacted to this shift in consumer preferences. Commercial food shopping and nutritional chains, such as Whole Foods, GNC, and Stop-and-Shop, have latched onto the health food bandwagon. Their scale and increased buying power allows them to sell higher volumes of goods at lower prices, which increases competition and has taken some business away from Nature’s Temptations. This increased competition from other food markets has restricted Nature’s Temptations’ market share to strictly local residents who shop locally for convenience of location and familiarity, while those who live further away find it more convenient shop at a different store to purchase the same goods at a lower price.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dynamic between Nature’s Temptation’s, as a small shop in a local downtown neighborhood, and larger, more globalized big-box competitors, such as Whole Foods and Stop-and Shop, is represented in the final chapter “Local Shops, Global Streets” in Global Cities, Local Streets. The presence of Nature’s Temptations in downtown Ridgefield offers local commerce and generates local jobs and taxes. It also contributes to the town’s identity because local residents who frequently shop at Nature’s Temptations are tied to the lifestyle benefits it provides them and makes it easy for them to access health foods and identify with a healthy lifestyle. However, the increased presence of nearby big-box chains, such as Whole Foods, is taking business away from Nature’s Temptations and threatens the local identity of Ridgefield’s health foods market, which boasts locally grown produce and draws a local crowd of residents who are familiar with each other in an intimate setting. As a purely local entity, Nature’s Temptations actively uses feedback from local residents and customers to change their inventories and will go to lengths to order products that are in particular demand in the local market. Competitive chains do not weigh local consumer preferences as heavily as small local businesses and instead change their inventories to cater to the wants of their national purveyors. The effects of globalization are far reaching and can even reach small towns such as Ridgefield with the introduction of larger food retailers like Whole Foods. Such larger stores ruin the intimacy and community feel that Nature’s Temptations brings and attracts strangers from outside of the area’s local radius. As a Ridgefield resident myself, I enjoy the thought of having small businesses with friendly faces nearby. It gives my town a sense of community that commercial chains could never afford to offer. In fact, the anonymity of commercial chains obstructs the strong types of buyer-seller relationships that small local businesses provide in building a community. This dynamic poses a risk and, if it comes to fruition, can add anonymity to Ridgefield’s downtown and threaten its local identity.

Ridgefield is a small enough town to combat the influence of chain stores through strict zoning laws and local representative voting actions to veto such future developments. Most of Ridgefield’s downtown is made up of local shops, with a few other businesses, including pharmacies and banks. Presently, there is a healthy balance of local and more mass businesses downtown, but as Ridgefield continues to grow in population, this may change as consumer demands shift and newer businesses start to move into town. The best way to combat this would be to continue to support local businesses like Nature’s Temptations and preserve Ridgefield’s strong local identity.

Hal Bruno ’16