May 17, 2017

Meet Lisa Piper of Natural Living Food Co-op & Cafe

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Piper.

Sometime in 2008, a few health food oriented women got together to form their own personal discount buying club as a means of providing healthy, organic foods for themselves and their families.

In 2010, Natural Living Store owner Lisa Piper reached out to local organic farmers, gardeners and other local food suppliers in an effort to broaden and establish a strong network of local resources. By combining the discount buying club, a couple of local organic farms and some skilled organic gardeners the Natural Living Country Store and Food Co-op was established in Lisa’s home. With no advertising budget the business quickly grew via word of mouth in the community. Renovations were made to the garage and carport at her home-based business to accommodate the increased business traffic.

At that point, the co-op was ready for a public building and community space so they leased a building in the historic district of Old League City.

Has it been a smooth road?
Our business is six years’ strong despite having partnered with a juice bar at our new location who abruptly shut down without notice consequently obligating Natural Living to buy out the juice bar and take over the entire lease. Our community of vendors who supply products for resale through our store rallied by agreeing to rent the newly acquired commercial kitchen to help cover the lease. An example of some our local vendor products includes organic ginger beer, organic granola, a variety of baked goods and more.

We are in the process of putting together a fund raiser bike tour in order to recuperate the thousands of dollars from the unexpected buy out of the aforementioned juice bar. Funds which were intended to be invested toward producing more local produce at the community co-op garden that includes not only gardening materials and supplies but ability to pay folks who participate in working at the garden.

We would like to make mention in an effort to help promote this year’s fund raiser. Jeff Stacy of Bike Tourings (biketourings.com) who was initially contacted by your staff decided it would be better to feature Natural Living’s Store and efforts in our community, we are putting together a Go Fund Me Page and partnering with Bike Tourings for an Organic Farm and Garden Bike Tour. Jeff will be conducting a solo bicycle tour while posting social media content and blogging in an effort to raise funds so that our business can recuperate some if not all of the funds previously mentioned. It’s important for folks to understand that Bike Tourings’ site and blog will fund the tour itself with all donations from the fund raiser going directly to our store.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Natural Living Food Co-op & Cafe – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
The Natural Living co-op is a diverse whole-foods community with a vast array of health food items and related services it offers to the community. There is the organic produce co-op where members can pick up weekly shares. Many members also participate in the bulk buying club by purchasing bulk dry goods and whole foods packaged goods at a discount. There is also shelf shopping of whole food ingredients in bulk bins such as dry goods, loose teas and more.

Herbalist Lisa Piper is on hand to answer questions in the organic herb room when customers are picking out their bulk herbs. Lisa also offers nutritional consults for those needing more in depth one-on-one information.

Natural Living now has the organic smoothie bar and cafe where customers can pick up freshly made organic vegan raw allergen free foods. Our Raw food chefs make sure to boost the foods and meals complete with living enzymes and love.

Members and volunteers can get involved with the co-op’s garden located about 5miles from the store. There they can work side-by-side with others in the community and learn about organic gardening while helping to grow foods for the weekly shares.

There is also a community Organic Seed Swap in our community hallway where members can drop off seeds for others to take. This is a FREE exchange that anyone can participate in through-out the year.

The co-op hosts a variety of local vendors that rent the commercial kitchen out at a discounted rate to small start-up mom-and-pop businesses making it possible to bring their goods to the community.

Our cafe and store provide allergen free options for most all food allergies including gluten free, dairy free, soy free, grain free and more. We are the only 100% GMO free store in all of southeast Texas.

Natural living also offers a variety of classes and hosts many events such as kids cooking classes, film screenings, drumming circles, alternative health classes and more.

Natural Living is most known for being an allergen friendly place with resources for alternative health. It is a wealth of resources for recipes.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Located halfway between Galveston Island and downtown Houston with close proximity to Kemah. It has conveniences of a large city but is able to maintain a small-town charm.

Mosquitos, humidity and possibility of hurricanes can often pose significant annoyances especially for folks who enjoy spending most of their time outside.

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