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Healthy Choices: H-E-B on Expressway 77 Now Offering Extensive Selection of Whole-Grain, Organic and Non-Preservative Items

Posted on: Saturday, 3 June 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Tony Vindell, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

Jun. 2--HARLINGEN -- Healthier food is now within consumers' reach, and in one of their favorite grocery stores.

The H-E-B supermarket on the Expressway 77 frontage road is the company's second in the Rio Grande Valley to offer an extensive selection of whole-grain, organic and non-preservative items, including beans, dried fruit and nuts sold in bulk for health-conscious consumers.

The first Valley store to offer these items was the store at Trenton Road in McAllen.

Other new items are organic water, teas, jellies, olives, oils, condiments, butter, pasta, spices, cereal and cookies.

The company is contemplating adding similar products at all its larger and new stores in the near future.

Unlike the typical stores where small sections of some aisles are devoted to organic and ethnic foods, such as Goya products, the store here has a larger variety of such products available throughout the grocery sections.

Most organic products with which consumers have been familiar have been vitamins, fruits and vegetables.

But H-E-B has gone beyond that, offering a growing selection in response to customer demand, company officials said.

Store manager Jorge Vela said the store began making the changes about three weeks ago.

"As you can see, we are still working on it," he said while showing an aisle equipped with a nut grinding station.

In that section, shoppers can buy dry nuts and grind their own fresh peanut butter in a machine built just for that purpose. Other dry items available in bulk are party mixes and some cereal.

The self-service sections allow shoppers to bag their own goods, weigh them and print a receipt of the products purchased.

Tom Linville, who manages several H-E-B stores here and one in San Benito, said the company is committed to providing healthier alternatives to customers.

Vela, who loves to eat barbacoa and pork carnitas for breakfast, said H-E-B's new line of products should help diabetics and people with problems related to their diet.

Shelly Parks, a company spokeswoman, said H-E-B is also responding to customer requests.

"That's why we have today such things as our Central Market produce, more organic food items and larger sections," she said. "Our goal is to offer these products at all of the larger and newer stores."

The abundance of organic and natural food items has attracted the attention of consumers.

Some of them said they did not know the store had such a wide variety and others said they would try these new items at some point.

Harlingen resident Alma Puente said she was impressed at such diversity of items geared toward the health-conscious consumer.

"I am always looking for this type of food for my daughter Cristal," she said while browsing along one aisle. "We are going to shop here more often."

Puente said she generally shops at the H-E-B on Morgan Boulevard, near her home.

Rudy Infante, who lives in Lyford, said many items available throughout the store were new to him.

"This is neat," he said. "I will check them out. I would think organic foods are a little more expensive than the regular food but I think they are a lot healthier."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas)

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