NORTHAMPTON – Since 1980, the Cornucopia Natural Wellness Market has served as a community centered, all natural, family-owned grocery store.

Cornucopia occupies space at Thorne’s Marketplace, located at 150 Main St., Suite 8, in Northampton.

Nate Clifford and his wife Jade Jump, have co-run Cornucopia since 2015.

Clifford said, “My wife was pregnant with our first child and we just moved out here from Cambridge, MA, and were just trying to get settled. Within five or six months, we were thinking that we wanted to do our own business, and at the same time, the person who owned this business was ready to sell.”

The Cliffords didn’t buy the business until March 2019. Between 2015 and 2019, they worked on figuring out finances and establishing their foundation.

“In the process, we learned a lot and gained trust within each other – we got it done,” said Clifford.

He went on to say, they inherited a large staff in 2019 and shifted the overall culture of the workplace with their visions in mind.

On the one year anniversary of their purchase, COVID-19 hit and shut their building down.

Of all the occupants within the building, Cornucopia Natural Wellness Market is the only essential business. Therefore, Clifford understood the decision that their landlord made to shut everything down.

“At the same time, the landlord said we could still do curbside delivery so we opened up on March 16,” said Clifford.

Customers were able to place their orders online by creating a list of what they wanted.

According to Clifford, they quickly received between 45 to 50 orders a day. At the time, this was enough to sustain them for the three months that the building would remain closed, he added.

Since their June reopening, Clifford said they have been slowly rebuilding. “We’re just trying to make sure we have a good foundation so that when things take off again, we’ll be able to capitalize on that.”

Right now, Cornucopia is doing better than most businesses, claimed Clifford.

He said, “We take advantage of all grants, loans – whatever programs are out there. It’s helped us out a lot.”

Within the Cornucopia Natural Wellness Market, customers will find anything that they’d typically find at a grocery store.

“We don’t have 50 different types of black beans, we have two, but we have them,” said Clifford.
Along with this, Cornucopia has a quality local selection. Before the pandemic, the local selection was greater, however, people's eating habits have changed, resulting in the purchasing of whatever they can get their hands on.

The grocery store has a full bulk department, frozen department, fresh organic produce, and an entire line of cruelty-free body care products.

Clifford told Reminder Publishing that they work closely with a lot of local and national farms.

In addition, Cornucopia sells supplements, which Clifford claimed they are primarily known for.

“We have one guy (Ian) working for us who has been here for 38 of the 40 years. He’s quite a guru when it comes to supplements, so we’re fortunate enough to have this department and have him here to do that,” said Clifford.

Similar to most businesses, the Cornucopia has dreams of expansion, yet their goals right now are to focus on their current store.

“We feel lucky to be here,” stated Clifford.

He added, “We always have and will continue to be the downtown community store. We don’t just exist to sell the community things, we are also here to try and give back as much as we can- our time, our money, our social media presence … whatever we can do to sort of promote local businesses.”

In the future, Cornucopia has many plans to underpin, and core values and missions to follow.

For additional information on Cornucopia Natural Wellness Market, visit their Facebook and Instagram pages, along with their website, www.cornucopianoho.com.