Just 20 to 30 minutes from Hinton or Lewisburg is a full service grocer and café that is stocked with fresh, affordable, and local products available daily.  Welcome to the Alderson Green Grocer. Their goal is to provide fresh food to Alderson and the surrounding area while supporting local farmers and keeping money in the community. This grocery store is located inside the Alderson Community Food Hub on Rt 12, across from Camp Greenbrier, see map on page 9!

This store is the go-to-place where individuals and families pick up grocery staples such as flour, sugar, spices, condiments, cool whip, hummus, chips, bread, or a sandwich from the deli. Dairy products are available in organic and conventional. You can find local potatoes, tomatoes, kale, lettuce, salad mixes, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, carrots and green beans. There’s also a wide variety of produce from national distributors including kiwi, avocados, bananas, apples, pineapples, peaches, and more. They also carry local and WV products such as honey, popcorn, cornmeal, jams, and jellies. Need bird seed, dog treats, or goats milk soap? They have that too! You can also find frozen foods such as pizza, onion rings, hash browns, chicken nuggets, garlic bread, piecrusts, fish sticks, and biscuits.

In the next few months, they will have some delicious locally sourced, in-season produce including apples, corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, onions, grape tomatoes, regular tomatoes, green peppers, sweet potatoes, garlic, beets, butternut squash, kale, lettuce and pumpkins!

There is a regular list of local products including eggs; meat: beef strip loin steak, ground chuck, ground beef, pork sausage, ground pork, pork breakfast sausage, ground lamb bratwurst, lamb stew meat, and chicken breast; Greenbrier Valley Baking Company’s pizza dough, bread, baguettes, rolls and bagels (see their ad on page 4); and one of kind Virginia coffee and ice cream: Matties Mountain Mud coffee in 10 different flavors and Homestead Creamery Ice Cream in 6 different flavors.

Owned and operated by local Aldersonians, Dawn and Billy Painter, The Sunny Side Cafe and Delicatessen is situated in the back of the grocer. They prepare both fresh and grab n’ go pulled pork sandwiches, brisket sandwiches and simple deli sandwiches every day. Deli sides include pepperoni cheddar pasta salad, macaroni salad, creamy pea salad, Thai peanut salad, broccoli salad, balsamic tomato salad, mac n’ cheese and cheddar ranch potatoes. You can also get fresh cuts of cheese and meat with 14 different types of cheeses and 9 different kinds of deli meats.    

The deli carries pork chops, ground chuck, rib-eye steak and the newest product is fresh cuts of fish: salmon, tuna and cod!  There’s also a brand new self-serve salad bar beside the deli and it’s supplied with as much local produce as possible.

If you are wondering in prices, it depends on if the product is local, organic or conventional. The dairy, deli and produce prices are very comparable to what you would see at a bigger grocery store, such as Kroger. But they also recognize that they cannot compete with Dollar General if they want their doors to stay open. For example, their price of sugar is a little bit higher than you would see sugar for at the Dollar General. The Green Grocer team invests a lot of energy into ensuring that their prices are affordable across the board for everyone in their community while balancing what they need to do to keep the doors open.

The Alderson Green Grocer is a convenient and friendly place to stop without the hassle of big box stores. They value people as much as they do food. And if they don’t have what you need, let them know and they will try their best to get it!

To stay updated with the Green Grocer and their local produce availability, follow them on facebook or visit aldersonfoodhub.org. They also hold a concert series and dates are listed on their fb page.

The Green Grocer is a social enterprise run by the non-profit Alderson Community Food Hub. All profits from the Green Grocer are reinvested in programming for the community and include the Alderson Community Market, Community Garden, Community Orchard, Mobile Market, Grow Appalachia, and our educational programming at Alderson Elementary School.