Katuah Market, the local, independent grocery store opened by John Swann near Biltmore Village just over a year ago, has announced it is closing.

From the store’s announcement on Facebook:

Katuah Market is closing on March 31st

It is with deep regret that we must announce Katuah Market will be closing at the end of this month. As you may know, Katuah has struggled since the beginning with our location, difficult ingress-egress, and relentless corporate competition, all of which has resulted in disappointing sales. Asheville has seen two large-format natural food stores open in the last two years, each owned by multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations, in addition to the five large corporately-owned stores that were already here, creating the most competitive natural food market in the country for its size. Although we have made significant changes over the past couple of months; trimming staff, reformatting our meat department, adding a Hop Ice Cream parlor, re-merchandising the supplement and grocery departments, etc., none of these changes produced the required increase in sales or significant enough cost reductions that were necessary for survival.

We are proud of the store that we created. The quality of our prepared foods and meats was first rate. Katuah Market was known as a welcoming and pleasant place to shop and eat, and we are told that our customer service was unsurpassed. We developed a positive company culture with happy, dedicated, and loyal employees. Every department was well stocked and merchandised. We carried more local products than any other store in the region, by far, and we helped bring a number of new products to market. Our store is rated with five stars, and 5,755 “likes” on our Facebook page.

Nonetheless, there are (too) many options for organic and local foods in Asheville, and our location and size limited our success. Many people chose not to drive the extra couple of miles it took to get to our store. Others bought most of their groceries at the big corporate chain stores, who offered an endless barrage of discounts, coupons, and advertising, leaving Katuah with only small, occasional, and incidental sales. Our customers shopped us more like a grab & go restaurant with an attached convenience store than as the grocery store that Katuah was designed to be.

Our food service sales were good, especially at lunch, but sales of the other more profitable departments dwindled to the point that our business is no longer sustainable. So, at this point, we have no alternative but to close the doors. Our last day of business will be Tuesday, March 31st. Between now and then, we will continue to offer our excellent quality prepared foods, and we will be offering our grocery and other products on sale, so come on down and get the deals while they last!

We truly appreciate the support that our loyal customers provided, and we hope that you will continue to support the other locally-owned stores in Asheville: the French Broad Food Co-op and West Village Market,

With deep regret,

The Management and Staff at Katuah Market