Blue Hill Co-op - Blue Hill, ME

Blue Hill Co-op

Opened: 2019 in current location; 1974 previously

Owner: cooperatively owned

Previous Tenants: none

Cooperative: National Co-op Grocers

Location: 70 South St, Blue Hill, ME

Photographed: June 14, 2022

Practically across the street from Tradewinds Marketplace (now Hannaford) here in Blue Hill, we find ourselves in another natural foods co-op. The Blue Hill Co-op started in 1974 and eventually moved into the first floor of a building at 4 Ellsworth Rd in town. When the co-op moved to its current, 15,000 square foot location in 2019, it was the largest co-op food store in Maine (not sure if that's still true). Here's a 2012 blog post that gives a little look at the old store.

The new building, which was purpose-built for this co-op, is modern and attractive. You enter to the produce department on the right side of the store, with bulk foods at the back. Grab-and-go prepared foods and dairy are on the back wall, with frozen foods and cheeses in the back-left corner. Meat, prepared foods, and a bakery are on the left side in the last aisle, with the registers and a cafe at the front.

I haven't been able to find many pictures of the inside of the older location, but it looks like this move was a big step up into a modern facility that's also more of a full supermarket than a small specialty store.

I love these big circular light fixtures, too. The design of the inside is pretty straightforward -- you can see there aren't many bells and whistles, but it's an attractive store.

Cheese and frozen foods in the back corner, with a small meat department followed by prepared foods and bakery at the front of the store.

No service deli, but there is a kitchen where prepared foods are made fresh in-store, and there's also a menu you can order from with food made to order serving breakfast and lunch.

A salad bar and hot foods are opposite the prepared foods counters.

It's still a small store, with just four grocery aisles and four registers. But they've done a nice job balancing the grocery basics with more specialized foods you might not find at a store like Hannaford.

The cafe is up at the front of the store. I love the windows here, and the afternoon light was coming in just perfectly!

Tomorrow, we're headed out to Deer Isle, an island just south of the Blue Hill Peninsula. Come back to tour an independent supermarket there!