There’s a new trend in food consumption, according to Nancy Gentry, the Market Store Manager of the Quad City Food Hub in Davenport. She said that now more people want to know where their food comes from and what’s in it.
“There’s been a paradigm shift in our food and the food people are wanting,” Gentry said. “Instead of people asking for foods with low cholesterol, they’re asking where the food came from, how the animals were fed and who the farmers were.”
Gentry said consuming organic, natural and local products means safer food with better taste, and she’s glad it’s catching on.
“People are rediscovering food because it has a new flavor again,” Gentry said. “It’s fresh, it’s local and it hasn’t come from a monster-sized plant, that puts in new additives that were never there in the first place.”
Gentry said the QC Food Hub works to give consumers the option to know where their food came from, and to make an educated choice about what they eat.
“There’s a difference between getting a product grown and raised in the U.S., and delivered to me from there, and a food that goes to China because labor is so low, and travels across the ocean using thousands of gallons of gas, to be reprocessed again and sent back to me,” Gentry explained.
Gentry is manager of the Food Hub’s Local Market Store, which sells natural, organic produce and foods. She said 80 percent of the foods they sell come from local farmers, just one aspect of the Food Hub’s aggregation program. The program helps farmers to start selling their products.

With help from a financial grant, support from the community and the increased interest in local foods, Gentry said the QC Food Hub is growing all the time. The Market Store is now open seven days a week, at its location on River Drive in Davenport.
And it’s not the only source for natural or local foods in the Quad Cities.
Heritage Natural Foods, with stores in both Moline and Davenport, also offers a wide selection of organic and local foods, according to employee and Augustana senior Elizabeth DeMay.
DeMay is in charge of sales and advertising at Heritage, a 47 year old business.
“All of our products are natural or organic, including our local eggs, meat and produce,” DeMay said. “We also have a wide variety of natural, sustainable and organic hygiene products, including essential oils, ear candles, soaps and shampoos, and deodorants.”
She said Heritage is also known for its large selection of supplements, herbal and homeopathic remedies and vitamins.
Along with offering the products needed to maintain a natural diet, DeMay said Heritage is working to spread knowledge about the benefits of eating whole foods and using organic products.
“Everyone who works here seems to have the same ambition: to help make not just ourselves healthier beings, but the community, by doing our best to help every person who walks through the door,” DeMay explained. “It is extremely rewarding helping people find products that make them really feel better.”
Occasionally, Heritage also offers classes to teach their customers about the utility and importance of being natural. On March 13, the Moline store hosted a seminar on the use of essential oils.
“Our goal is to be interactive with our customers and their health, so we will also be hosting more classes so our customers can become more knowledgeable with what we have to offer, as well as providing more “sample” days,” DeMay said.
Heritage Natural Foods also offers a 10 percent discount for students, if they show their college I.D.
Heritage and the QC Food Hub have both there to be more interest in the consumption of natural, organic and local foods recently. Through classes and other programs, both Gentry and DeMay are working to make natural foods more than just a trend.
As Gentry explained, “the difference is in the taste.”