The Market Report

Martin's Country Market Owner: John Martin Opened:  1983 Cooperative:  IGA (Family Owned Markets) Location:  1717 W Main St, Ephrata, PA Photographed:  August 20, 2019 It's time for our next Family Owned Markets-affiliated IGA with Martin's Country Market! The 52,000 square foot store was constructed in 1983 along with the rest of the Lincoln Mall, including a furniture store owned by the same family. Speaking of the same family, the owner of this store also owns the John F. Martin brand of meat and deli products (his name is John F. Martin, which will not surprise you). Their cheddar is excellent. The missing letter in the supermarket's sign did not give me high hopes for the store's interior, but I was very pleasantly surprised. According to the store's website , they did a full remodel in 2012. I'm trying to remember the specific layout, but I believe grocery aisles run parallel to the front wall. Bakery, produce, and dairy are on the left-side wall, wi...

Weiser's Market Owner: Tim Weiser Opened:  1998 Cooperative:  none Location:  805 Main St, Akron, PA Photographed:  August 20, 2019 Although we've been seeing a lot of really large independent supermarkets, there are smaller independent supermarkets too. The town of Akron, PA, with a population of around 4000, has one supermarket and it's the 7000 square foot Weiser's Market in the middle of town. The store opened in 1998, but has been a supermarket for long before that. As we see, it's an old building that's been fixed up a bit with some new fixtures and fresh paint on the walls. The flooring might be much older terrazzo, though. Produce lines the first aisle, with meat and deli on the back wall (pictured above). Dairy and frozen are in the last aisle, with baked goods on the front wall -- although products are definitely baked in-store, there's no service bakery department. As we'll see, there are two registers that actually run perpendicular to the g...

The Market at Oregon Dairy Owner: Victor Hurst Opened:  1979, previous farm store opened 1974 Cooperative:  IGA (Family Owned Markets) Location:  2900 Oregon Pk, Lititz, PA Photographed:  August 20, 2019 As we've seen, there are quite a few large independent country supermarkets in this part of Pennsylvania, such as Shady Maple and Yoder's , and on that list is also The Market at Oregon Dairy. Oregon Dairy is a large, family-owned, working farm that has this roughly 70,000 square foot supermarket, family restaurant, and ice cream shop. The supermarket is a member of the IGA-affiliated Family Owned Markets, with a few other stores including Yoder's. When I visited in 2019, the store was still affiliated with whatever the evolution of AWI was, but they were C&S-affiliated and still selling Best Yet and Full Circle items. We enter to the produce department on the right side of the store. I'm not 100% on my memory of the layout, but I believe produce is in the fron...