I was at home, working, when my wife called and said, “There is a new organic market in town. Why don’t you check it out? They may have those grains you’ve been wanting.”  She told me where it was, more or less, and gave me the name.  I did a web search and found it quickly: Mother Nature’s Market in Snellville.

This is an established market that has moved from a location in Tucker, Georgia to a location along Highway 78.  For me that’s a huge difference in terms of time, as it takes roughly half an hour to get down to Tucker.  I called, to find out if they had the red lentils I wanted.  The young man who answered took a look and said, “Yes, we have them, red split lentils.”  That pretty much clinched the deal.

The market is located about 2 blocks east of the Oak Road-US 78 Intersection, about one block east of the Wisteria-US 78 Intersection. It’s in a strip mall on the left (north side of the road), as you’re traveling east on US 78, and it’s roughly opposite South Gwinnett High School. It has a large sign on the outside. If traffic is good, it should be pretty easy to spot.

Mother Nature's Market is a neat, clean store on Highway 78, just opposite South Gwinnett High School in Snellville.

Mother Nature's Market is a neat, clean store on Highway 78, just opposite South Gwinnett High School in Snellville.

Inside, the store is well organized, neat, clean, with a lot of free space.  They have a terrific array of supplements, as well as a large array of spices.  A good portion of what they sell is outside of my interests, as I’m not much for supplements more complicated than a children’s chewable. In some cases the prices are just surprising.  As an example, a relatively small bottle of organic maple syrup costs in excess of $30.00.

On the other side of the cost spectrum are the whole grains, peas, beans, and lentils.  I found just about anything I could have wanted, short of amaranth, and the store was particularly rich in whole grains, such as whole wheats, hulled barley, oat groats, etc. I judged the prices to be competitive with any supermarket, most less than $2.00/lb. Bulk pearled barley differed from the Publix price by just pennies a pound, and no grain I judged terribly expensive.  Now the bulk quinoa was $4.55/lb.  Given kind and type (they had red quinoa as well as traditional), this may be a moderately high price or a great price.  I haven’t done enough comparison shopping to tell you just yet. However, for many of these bulk grain items, the only other source I know is Return To Eden, and as far as Return To Eden is, you could make up in gas savings what you lose in immediate expense.

I asked about vanilla “Better Than Milk”, a dry soy milk product my wife uses, and which they didn’t have. But they said they would be happy to special order anything we wanted.  I thought that was more than fair.

Now the hours are not terribly commuter friendly, as they are open Monday through Friday 10am to 7pm, but they have Saturday hours, 9:30am to 6pm.  The Saturday times and extreme closeness make this store accessible to working families.

Even if you’re a die-hard Kroger and Publix shopper, drop by this place sometime. You won’t regret it.

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