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I love this History and Preface!
Lovely History of Erewhon and the History of the Natural Food Industry
are included here! Annotated history of Eden Foods. One of the key
players in the founding of Eden Foods was Tim Redmonds, father of
Sara Snow.
Fascinating!
The original name of EDEN foods came
from environmental Defense Education Network (EDEN)
Date: 7/7/2008 2:10:03 PM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 2361 times 12:01 PM
July 7. 08
O.K. O.K. I know I have other things to be doing!
I was writng about Sara Snow and got into this
facinating history.
It facinates me because I have known some of these personalities
over the years. I first met some of them in my early
years growing up in Los Angeles
I was very involved with the life and works of Dr. Bernard Jensen
who I notice is not mentioned in this work.
I would like to see that corrected.
The work asks for corrections to be made.
I love this preface by Silver written in 1006.
I never met Osawa, but I am good friends with Jean Richardson
of Goldmine Natural foods. Goldmine is the distributor for Osawa products today.
In the 80's many of the leaders of the Macrobiotic Movement
would come together at Larry Cooper's Southern Cal
Health Classics. I had the opportunity to meet and photograph
Avenine and Michio Kushi, Herman Aihara, and others.
I met Bill Tara, a friend of William Spear, a close friend.
I have stunning photos of Michio Kushi that have never been published
and photos of his offspring. He was a man who I rarely saw smile, but in the presence
of his family, I took some lovely photos of him smiling!
I imagine the history of the Mactrobiotic movement would be interested in these
Super Ripe Images.
This also mentioned the Natural Food Merchandiser, a publishcation of New Hope Natural
Media. New Hope Natural Media stages the Natural Product Expo West, a major event each
year in my life.
http://temp.soyinfocenter.com/pdf/113/Erewhon.pdf
PREFACE
Where did the natural food business as we know it come from? It
started with a company called Erewhon. Were there other
companies selling natural foods before there was an Erewhon? Of
course. Plenty. So couldn't they just as well be considered the
founders of the natural food business?
Those companies, some of whom (like Walnut Acres or
Arrowhead Mills or New Age) preceded Erewhon by years or
even decades, growing, producing, marketing natural foods and
still there was no natural food industry in the sense that we know
it today. After Erewhon, the natural foods' industry didn't need
founding anymore.
Once Erewhon demonstrated that the 'grocery' model could be
brought to natural foods -- high turn, low margins, reasonable
prices, easy access, good availability -- they made it possible for
the growers and producers to expand (and made a place for more
of them) and the retailers to exist, and they created a distribution
model that enabled both. Even better -- they showed you could
make a business selling only the products you cared about and
believed in.
Like a shoot of rice, the business of Erewhon grew from a seed.
In this case the seed was an idea -- what Georges Ohsawa called
"one grain, ten thousand grains.” The Japanese idea of the
obligation to return more than you've received when given
something. Ohsawa also said "The bigger the front, the bigger the
back." And Ohsawa probably would have said that the seed of
Erewhon's destruction came from what he called the greatest
sickness: a kind of arrogance.
Erewhon had a mission: to make the world a better place. People
would eat better, they'd be healthy. Being healthy, they'd think
better. Thinking better, they would then realize war made no
sense...theft made no sense...we'd all be on a mission
TOGETHER, as everyone ate better and got with the program.
What a great adventure: to not only change the world, but to
SAVE the world!
And so it followed that when Michio and Aveline Kushi began
Erewhon it was to be an educational effort, in the form of a
business. That vision gave it a tremendous strength in the
beginning -- when there really wasn't any money, so it wasn't a
business in the usual sense anyway. However - it didn't need to
make money, it was a school.
In the end, when it was big and really was a business, what had
given Erewhon its ideological strength became its weakness.
Ohsawa said: 'Everything turns into its opposite at its extreme.
Everything changes." You need to change with it!
As a business entity, Erewhon failed. As a business idea, it was
wildly successful. I've heard it said that Erewhon failed because
the company compromised its vision. I've also heard it said that it
failed because the company didn't compromise its vision. And
I've heard that the vision itself was the problem...
Even so, imagine that Michio wrote “Erewhon” on a pebble forty-
odd years ago and dropped it into a pond. Today we can see only
the ripples, and no evidence of the pebble or even where it might
have been dropped. Just the ripples, and a little wave once in
awhile. Think though... the really fascinating thing is that
Erewhon was both the rock AND the pond.
The tuition has been paid, the education is yours. One grain, ten
thousand grains.
James Silver
Irvine, California
March 21, 2006
This writing contains
a facinating annotated history
of Eden foods.
New Product–Documentation: Erewhon Trading Co.
Inc., Wholesale Retail Catalogue. 1970. Jan. 1. "Soy Sauce
(imported). Aged naturally in wooden kegs at least 18
In the fall of 1969 the Teeguarden-Leabu second-hand
store looked like it was about to close, which would leave
the food co-op without a home. The group (especially
Ronnie Teeguarden) convinced Bill Bolduc to take charge
of the food co-op and find it a permanent home, which he
did–in an upstairs apartment at 514 East William St.
Members of the informal food-buying co-op who worked at
Eden Organic Foods included Bill Bolduc, Gloria Dunn,
and Tim Redmond. An environmental group named the
Environmental Defense Education Network (EDEN) also
operated out of the Teeguarden-Leabu General Store; it was
from this group that Eden got its name. That fall, after the
Eden Organic Foods co-op was up and running, Tim
Redmond went to Boston to work and study at Sanae, a
macrobiotic restaurant on 272A Newbury St.
Erewhon
history
The History of Erewhon
We thought you might like to know a little of the history
and background of Erewhon. We are often asked about our name.
Erewhon is taken from the Utopian novel of the same name written by Samuel Butler
in the 1800s about a land
where people are held responsible for their own health.
Today, this seems more appropriate than ever.
Published by: Soyfoods Center
P.O. Box 234
Lafayette, CA 94549-0234 USA
Phone: 925-283-2991 Fax: 925-283-9091
__
A common theme among the businesses here was an interest in Macrobiotics.
I met Michael Potter, another key player in Eden Foods,
years ago at the Natural Product Expo. Bill Tara, also mentioned
in this article, is another favorite teacher, and close friend of
William Spear, one of my allies.
Avenine and Michio Kushi, who founded Erewhon,
I would see at Larry Cooper's Health Classics over the years.
Michio Kushi and I did a few photo sessions together
and played a bit together. He had interest in world peace.
Avenine and I would talk. I remember her juggling.
The article mentions the founding of Erewhon in L.A.
I lived in that neighborhood near Beverly Blvd and remember
walking into the store in the early days as a teen. I was amazed
that some of the staff smoked. This was a habit that Michio
also had. No big deal, but I found this curious.
The History mentions the Macrobiotic Study House on Franklin Blvd.
I remember going there for dinner once in the early days when
I was exploring natural food.
From the History:
1969 Aug.–Aveline Kushi moves to Los Angeles
where her youngest son, Hisao, undergoes traditional
Japanese bone massage therapy. In Los Angeles, she
establishes the first macrobiotic study house at 7511
Franklin Ave. Bill Tara arrives about a month later to set
up a retail store, Erewhon-Los Angeles, which opens on
8001 Beverly Blvd. in about September.
1969 Oct. (early)–Bruce Macdonald leaves for Los
Angeles with his new bride to run the new Erewhon retail
store there. Roger Hillyard takes over as general manager
of Erewhon in Boston.
Starting in late 1969 a number of macrobiotic and/or
natural foods companies grew into distributors following
the models established by and with help from Erewhon:
Eden Organic Foods in Ann Arbor (started by Bill
Bolduc on 4 Nov. 1969),
Food for Life (started in 1970
by Bill Tara as a retail store on the 10th floor of a
Chicago office building), Janus in Seattle, Washington
(Jan. 1972, by George Gearhart and Blake Rankin,
formerly of Spiral Foods), Essene in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania (by Feb. 1971), Laurelbrook in Maryland
(Aug. 1971), Ceres in Colorado Springs (1973), and The
Well in San Jose, California (1973, by Roger Hillyard).
These macrobiotic distributors had a strong influence on
the numerous other non-macrobiotic natural food
distributors, such as Lifestream (started in 1969 as a retail
store), Westbrae in Berkeley, California (wholesale
distribution: July 1970; retail: Feb. 1971 both by Bob
Gerner), Shadowfax in New York (1971), and Tree of
Life in St. Augustine, Florida (retail: May 1971;
wholesale distribution: Feb. 1972, by Irwin Carasso).
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