The Greenest Store

Charlotte Trotter

Have you ever wanted a grocery store that contains all healthy food alternatives for your daily food products? Meanwhile, the store itself was helping the environment. Good Earth has mastered these tasks and much more.

Good Earth is owned by Al Baylacq and Mark Squire, yet there are many more helpful employees that are involved in Good Earth. Good Earth is natural foods store located in Fairfax, Marin County. Mark Squire was inspired to open a sustainable grocery store 40 years ago when he read scientist Rachel Carson's book, The Silent Spring. The book explains how artificial chemicals are used in the process of farming conventional crops. Carson proved that this is unhealthy for humans, and extremely harmful to the environment, and will ultimately lead to a “dead” planet. Because of the harmful chemicals used in conventional farming, Mark started a unique grocery store called Good Earth that provides all natural foods that don’t harm the environment.

From the beginning, Baylacq and Squire wanted to make Good Earth as green as possible. Today, Good Earth has 852 solar panels which generates 35% of the store’s daily energy use. Once Baylacq and Squire received a grant from the federal government to install solar panels, both felt confident about their decision to make Good Earth as green as possible. Therefore it was a no brainer for the owners of Good Earth to put in the 6th largest solar panel system in the county. Baylacq also explained that every grocery store uses massive amounts of energy on a daily basis, and for Good Earth to have 35% of that energy to come from a natural source is one of their favorite and best accomplishments.

Good Earth provides healthy, fresh, and sustainable lunches everyday for 14 different Marin schools. In order to meet their demand, Good Earth starts cooking from scratch at 5am. The food is then put in hot boxes in order to keep the food fresh and warm until 12pm when it is then eaten by thousands of students.  

Good Earth is changing rapidly. Al Baylacq and Mark Squire have much more in store for the future. Because of the increased demand, Good Earth is opening a new store in the fall of 2015, located in Marin County. The owners and daily customers are more than excited to have natural foods become more popular throughout Marin County. With the new store coming soon, hopes are high for sustainable and green alternatives in order to create a healthier community.