A Natural Resource The Green Store finds receptive market in Belfast

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Even in quirky Belfast, a place where a natural foods cooperative and artist-run gallery had been able to flourish in the 1980s, some eyes must have rolled when the Green Store opened the day after Thanksgiving in 1993.

After all, Maine’s economy was just beginning to crawl its way out of a recession.

Belfast had not fully recovered from the deaths of its poultry and shoe industries, and credit-card lender MBNA had just opened its first Maine offices – tentatively – in Camden, and its eventual expansion north probably seemed like a fantasy at the time.

So a new business billing itself as “a general store for the 21st century,” selling everything from composting toilets to shirts made from organically grown cotton, just didn’t seem like a “can’t-miss” business venture.

Ten years later, the Green Store is thriving and has spun off a second store in Damariscotta and an alternative energy business called Energyworks.

“When we opened the business we were quite idealistic and quite naive,” said Ellie Daniels, who, along with her then-husband and another couple, launched the Green Store. The idea, she said, came out of a freewheeling discussion during a friendly poker game.

After a couple of beers, Daniels remembers, talk turned to natural food, organic gardening, living “off the grid,” and she and the others at the table realized that each component was like a spoke in a wheel.

“It was really one lifestyle,” Daniels said, and the idea for a store supplying products to those living that way was born.

In June 1993, Daniels, her husband and Bill and Penny Behrens borrowed $50,000 from friends and family and secured a lease to the storefront on Lower Main Street being vacated by the Belfast Co-op Store, which moved to a larger building nearby.

Daniels and her partners availed themselves of free business help from Coastal Enterprises Inc. and conducted the small-town version of a marketing study, sending their kids onto the streets wearing placards to ask people about what products they wanted to see in the new store.

Opening the day after Thanksgiving, the store was swamped, Daniels remembered. Between opening day and Christmas, the store did $38,000 worth of business.

“It was very exciting, and very scary,” she said.

Penny Behrens, who had been a silent partner, left her job to join in at the store, Daniels said, and the children in both families became actively involved in the operation.

“It was just a fabulous time,” she said. The couples were in their 40s, at the height of their energies.

The next summer, when tourists returned to Main Street, many wandered into the store.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” they often said, and many would stay as long as an hour, Daniels recalled.

It’s easy to believe that customers would linger as long as an hour. The small store has various “departments,” including:

. Clothing (hemp and organic cotton).

. Toxic-free paints and stains.

. Flooring tiles and rugs made from vegetable and recycled products.

. Greeting cards and stationery made from “tree-free” sources.

. Herbal, homeopathic and vitamin supplements.

. Cadmium-free batteries and supplies for solar-powered homes.

It’s a place where you can find low-energy and full-spectrum light bulbs and lights, indoor air and water filtering systems, organically grown cotton sheets – even bleach-free toilet paper.

“We really are a general store,” she said.

Early on, the partners guided their stock selection by trying to get the latest in environmentally friendly products, then tracking what actually sold. Many of the products that were cutting-edge 10 years ago now are offered in mainstream retail stores, Daniels said, so the Green Store has adjusted.

In the early years, the store sold on-demand hot water heaters, photovoltaic panels and other sustainable energy hardware. But in recent years, that part of the business – run by Bill Behrens – has been spun off as Energyworks, and is more of a service company, similar to an electrician’s or plumber’s business.

The move freed space in the store. And while the store’s gross sales have decreased slightly, Daniels said, revenues have increased, because products with higher markups can be sold.

“Ten years ago, we were really on the front of the wave” that was coming east from California, as consumers came to demand “healthy home” products. More and more illnesses have been linked to synthetic chemicals in homes, Daniels said, so it is easier to convince people to spend a little more money on “green” products.

“People are being sent to the Green Store by medical practitioners” in search of toxin-free products, she said.

“It’s becoming more mainstream,” Daniels said. The attitude of customers toward many of the products is: “It costs a little bit more, but I understand why I ought to make the investment,” she said.

Rather than hand-wringing about the state of the environment or preaching to people about the need to tread more lightly, the store has focused on the positive, showing people how they can make even a small difference.

The store also stresses values as much as goals. The staff developed a list of core values, which include such statements as, “We believe we can be financially successful while behaving in a socially and environmentally responsible manner” and “Personal and planetary integrity are paramount.”

Daniels tells staffers she would rather they have quality interaction with a customer than make a sale, an ethic she recognizes in businesses such as L.L. Bean.

Customers browsing the Green Store might notice a decidedly leftward political bent to the store. While being careful not to “be in people’s faces,” the store and its owners are less shy than ever about expressing those views, she said.

“I feel like business is an agent for change,” Daniels said. The store can change the way people think about their world, “and that’s exciting to me.”

The store’s Web site is www.greenstore.com.