When Bruce and Sharon MacGurn got married in 1969, their new life together involved yoga and cutting the junk from their diets. These days, it includes a growing chain of organic grocery stores.
The MacGurns own Costa Mesa-based Mother’s Market & Kitchen, which sells organic foods, produce, bulk grains, nuts, health supplements, personal care products such as hair dye and makeup, and vegetarian meals.
The company has a 14,000-square-foot store in Costa Mesa and 10,000-square-foot stores in Huntington Beach, Irvine and Laguna Woods.
Combined, the four stores do about $55 million in yearly sales, or nearly $14 million apiece. That’s about half of what Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market Inc., the No. 1 natural food chain operator, does per store.
The goal, according to Bruce MacGurn, is to reach $100 million in yearly sales by adding stores. Mother’s plans to open a Santa Ana store in 2008 and another in North Orange County, possibly in Anaheim Hills, he said.
Mother’s sells some 40,000 products. The company buys from more than 1,800 suppliers, including product makers and distributors. Produce comes from farms and clearing houses in Los Angeles.
More Competition
Competition has grown along with natural grocery products. Besides Whole Foods, with one OC store in Tustin, other big players are Monrovia-based Trader Joe’s Co. and Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats Market Inc., which runs Henry’s Farmers Markets.
And mainstream grocers have gotten in on the act, as with Albertsons LLC’s Bristol Farms and expanded organic offerings at Kroger Co.’s Ralphs.
The MacGurns started Mother’s in 1978 with family members and friends from the Yoga Center of California in Costa Mesa as investors.
They opened their first store in Costa Mesa with $81,000. They wanted a name that would evoke healthy eating and exercise. They decided to call their store Mother’s Market & Kitchen as an ode to the “nurturing essence” of real mothers and Mother Earth.
It’s more than a business to the MacGurns: “Our purpose was to manifest truth, health and goodness in the natural food context,” Bruce MacGurn said.
Their goal was to make shopping easier and affordable for the health conscious. They started selling juicers, vitamins, bulk grains, seeds, nuts and hard-to-find health foods out of their 2,600-square-foot store.
“The typical health food customer in those days would have to visit two or three stores to get what they wanted,” MacGurn said.
Making Mother’s
The MacGurns and their investors had an idea for their business. But, at first, they didn’t know how to manage money, lure customers and buy the right products, MacGurn said.
The couple’s yoga ties helped early on. Family and friends worked at the store and helped spread the word about Mother’s.
“I didn’t foresee our business to get to where it is,” MacGurn said. “You hope for success but there are no guarantees. We didn’t have enough experience when we started and it presented a real steep learning curve.”
By 1983, the MacGurns expanded their Costa Mesa store to 14,000 square feet and opened another in Huntington Beach. In 1996, the Irvine store opened, followed by Laguna Woods in 2000.
MacGurn has relied on advice from family and friends: grow gradually. That’s evident in the company’s four stores in 28 years.
The Costa Mesa store now counts more than 125 workers, up from a dozen or so in the early days. The other three stores each have about 100 workers.
MacGurn said he chalks up the growth to the rise of organic and vegetarian foods.
“Nationwide, the industry has grown,” he said. “More people are interested in health, nutrition and exercising, and the role food and supplements play into these categories.”
Mother’s is as much of a lifestyle as it is a business, according to MacGurn. The stores hold food demonstrations and health seminars.
The company’s Web site helps with marketing by offering healthy living tips, including recipes, calorie and body mass index calculators and information about ingredients, herbs, supplements, health conditions, medicines and treatments.
“The nice thing about Mother’s is it’s creative,” MacGurn said. “We do an endless number of things, from mopping up wet floors to public relations work. That’s the great thing about owning a small business. We’re always trying to do a lot of things to grow our understanding of what’s going on.” n
