Wild Oats Marks 25 Years and Growing

By Linda Carman - January 19, 2008

General Manager Michael Faber View Slide Show

WILLIAMSTOWN - Bring out the cake and strike up the band. Wild Oats community market celebrates its 25th birthday today with those essentials, plus samples, demonstrations of food preparation, raffles and general merriment.

Like much of its produce, Wild Oats' growth has been organic and steady. While the 25th anniversary marks the opening of its first storefront, its genesis was a neighborhood pre-order food buying club formed in 1975. Seven years later the cooperative saw the opening of its first retail space, in the Colonial Shopping Center, where it subsequently shifted into another space, then expanded.

The new store, which it owns, is a complete retooling - essentially rebuilding - which transformed the former Dox store at 320 Main St. into an energy-efficient, spacious marketplace that opened in the summer of 2005.

Wild Oats is now the only grocery store in the village.

General Manager Michael Faber, who has just completed his first year on the job, said he was drawn to Wild Oats because of its focus on local and organic products, encouragement of sustainable agriculture, and its sense of community fostered by its cooperative ownership. But membership is not required to be a customer, and about half are not.

Faber said the job lets him "marry my values with some of my business background."

In fact, the challenge is to meet the goals of the co-op - community and sustainability - "and it also has to be a success as a business."

Before taking on the managership of Wild Oats, Faber spent four years at the Berkshire Co-op Market in Great Barrington, where he was store manager.

Since operating out of the new space, Wild Oats has been able to focus more on increasing its offerings of local foods - now prominently labeled - which, in addition to freshness and flavor, supports local farmers.

"The past growing season, we increased local items by 20 percent," Faber said. "We've increased our selection of prepared foods (the creations of chef Greg Roach) and we recently put in a larger 'grab-and-go' section."

By mid-March, Faber said, a hot foods bar is expected to be in place.

"It's been going well. People are responding," he said.

Wild Oats has a bakery and a cafe space with tables and chairs. "It's a great meeting place," he said.

Jared Polens, in charge of the perishables department, can look back over 18 1/2 years at Wild Oats. When he started as a weekly worker, he was a cook at Bascom Lodge on Mount Greylock and he recalls the first store as "funky, grungy, with handmade shelves."

Polens, recognized by many as a musician, said the evolution has been striking, with more space, more facilities, and vastly more selection.

"People's awareness of food has increased," he said. From a baseline of zero local cheeses, "now we have an amazing array of local regular suppliers, including Cricket Creek Farm which makes cheese right here in Williamstown."

"It's a community store," he continued. "We know the people who shop here, and we have a real sense of community."

That sense of community reaches beyond the village - the coffee and chocolate on the shelves are "Fair Trade," meaning the growers are paid a living wage rather than a pittance.

Faber and former manager David Fowle will serve slices of birthday cake at 2 this afternoon. The first 25 people to go through the register will receive free gifts and, through January, specials will be discounted 25 percent.

Hours are 8:30 to 7, Sundays 9 to 7. For more information, www.wildoats.coop or  413-458-8060.