Kids, Culture And Local Champions

Tessa Badenhorst with her Local Champion retailer award

The Aloe Tree in Ennistymon, County Clare, is rocking to the music of health and wholesomeness

Celebrating ten years of dynamic community retailing this year, The Aloe Tree in Ennistymon, Co Clare's historic market town, recently welcomed its newest staffer – aged just eight.

That might be because this fantastic health food store and doyen of everything alternative has a brilliant focus on children.

Owner Tessa Badenhorst caved in when her son begged to be allowed to help out after school. "He's charming everyone," says Tessa, proudly.

Perhaps this perfectly natural focus on Young Health stems from an evening with Oliver McCabe, superstar author of Kid's Kitchen Takeover, who wowed a crowded shopfloor with magical ideas for children to roll up their sleeves and show their parents the way to eat more healthily.

"We had a great evening with Oliver and it gave me a real boost to hold more events of this kind in the future," says Tessa. "He came to launch his cookbook and do a kids' cooking demo so I sent out word to our customers and local schools.

"The event was booked out with 51 people coming, 35 of them kids! I was apprehensive that it might turn into mayhem in such a small space but Oliver is just so engaging and believes in what he's doing that he kept them captivated throughout.

"We had kids coming in the days afterwards wearing their badges and buying ingredients to cook the family dinner – that was so inspiring to see."

Children are her favourite customers. "We have a whole play corner for them with a play kitchen, wooden trucks, activity and story books," she says. "Sometimes parents sit there with a coffee or smoothie and read books together which I love to see.

"I often find shopping with my kids quite stressful (I have three young boys) and I've made the corner as I would like to find it. Sometimes the parents shop while I get to sit and colour with the kids. I think it's important for spaces to be welcoming for kids to give them confidence and security in being part of the community."

Overcoming obstacles

Tessa and her six staff – plus one enthused eight-year-old – rely heavily on the advice and guidance of Health Stores Ireland, the trade body for Ireland's health food stores.

"Thanks to HSI, I was very aware of the obstacles we were facing and so having a heads-up, I was able to adapt to the trend changes," she says. "I put a lot of work into having more budget-friendly ranges that are still quality, finding better bulk deals to keep prices down and also finding new and interesting products to combat losing a few different brands due to supply chain issues."

But the secret of The Aloe Tree's success is much more than economics. It's about Community Engagement so it's no surprise that the store won "Local Producer Champion" in the Health Stores Ireland/New Natural Business 2024 Retailer Awards in January. They came close in just about every category but their emphasis on local teamwork gave them yet another accolade to display at the till.

The desire to engage with local suppliers and everyone on their doorstep is what sets The Aloe Tree apart.

"We thrive because we are part of the community and we can see that most of our customers are regulars. There's always a great buzz and feedback coming up to and after events that we hold," says Tessa.

A growing business

It's not just the fun side of nutrition, there's an educational programme going on too. Even cultural, as you would expect on the west coast of Ireland.

They hold in-store parties with local suppliers and raffles raising money for local charities. They support every school and local sports team that approaches them with raffle prizes or cash donations. For every tenth coffee sold they plant a native Irish tree locally on land just outside the town.

"We have planted over 1,000 trees since starting this initiative," says Tessa, "and I have just invested in an awning outside our shop purely for locals and customers to shelter and chat to keep our main street alive."

There's an initiative to educate locally on glyphosphate and stop as many people using it as they can. This is an informative approach rather than accusative.

A communal coffee table has become a meeting point and sometimes musicians gather together for a session. For "culture night", more than 50 people hand-printed their own tote bags with messages of environmental awareness.

Music the food of love

"During Covid, we realised how being integral in the community was not only a lifeline for our customers but it was also what made sense of what we do," Tessa says.

This awareness even extends to artists, authors and musicians, never mind whether they prefer a burger to a healthy meal.

"We sell local musicians' CDs and our table in the corner welcomes pop-up jam sessions, sometimes with musicians," Tessa smiles. "When my father (an artist too) was alive he played here often with his cronies and it's sentimental to me to keep that going."

That was because local music was in her blood. "I originally followed in his footsteps to becoming a professional artist until a swing in my life path swapped my personal interest in health foods to becoming my profession instead.

"Art is still a love of mine and I'm part of a few local artistic projects, so often the shop is involved. It's all quite organic (no pun intended!) in how music and art intertwine with the shop as a space for local culture."

That leaves a further question. How does The Aloe Tree get the environmental message across?

"My motto is to never wag the finger at people," Tessa says. "Everyone is at a different level but if they've come in the door they obviously have something we can help them with. I believe it's our responsibility to make it easier for them.

"We do the research on the products being environmentally ethical and we provide easy options to shop package-free so that it's not a big deal to make these changes to shopping habits."

Championing local

Co Clare is rich with local producers but many people from around the country flock there, too.

"We sell locally baked sourdough twice a week. And we have fresh local foraged foods as well as locally grown salads delivered regularly. Fresh Irish organic veg twice a week. We Love to do all-Irish windows or offer a local supplier to do a window takeover for their products. Our motto is 'local, organic, natural' which we encourage.

"We had a local willow craftsman build our 'Irish Only' cosmetics shelf. This is floor-to-ceiling with a beautiful willow arch and willow shelves. We work with our local suppliers on growing their brands and ranges, helping them with the feedback customers give us and brainstorming together on how to help them move forward.

"Many local artists sell their artist greeting cards with us as well as numerous local musicians' albums or local authors' books. A few years in a row now we've hosted a plant swap through the shop and often throughout the year different local growers will bring in surplus harvest for customers to take for free – apples, herbs, grapes, aloe vera plants, damsons, plums, etc.

"We regularly visit our local producers to understand where the food comes from and they have hosted us with a great welcome."

Aloe Christmas

The Aloe Tree keeps every "good jar or bottle" to be able to encourage customers to refill detergents and cosmetics when they have forgotten their own. They get 30c off when they bring their own coffee cup – then there's the tree-planting initiative. There are nearly 30 dried foods options plus detergents and cosmetics and cleaning vinegar. "We've recently just purchased a peanut butter machine to make package-free refillable peanut butter." Add to that compostable and plastic-free hamper packaging at Christmas.