Vinton County was a food desert after SuperValu closed in 2013 until Campbell’s Market opened in McArthur in 2017

By Megan Henry
Ohio Capital Journal
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/

MCARTHUR, Ohio – Bill Hensley browsed Campbell’s Market’s seven aisles Monday morning with his neighbor Roswitha Anderson. 

“I was here yesterday and I forgot my cream cheese,” she laughed as she clutched her Philadelphia Cream Cheese. 

Hensley, who likes cooking with the store’s pork cutlets, surveyed the meat counter. 

“You’ve got to have fresh produce to do good cooking,” the eastern Vinton County resident said. 

It wasn’t that long ago that Vinton County — the least populated county in Ohio with about 12,560 people — was a food desert. The county’s only grocery store SuperValu closed in 2013, forcing residents to travel roughly 30 minutes one way to grocery stores like Kroger and Walmart in Athens, Logan, Jackson, Chillicothe or Wellston. 

But that all changed when Campbell’s Market opened their third location in the county’s seat of McArthur on Oct. 25, 2017.

The addition of the grocery store has helped Vinton County by making it more convenient for residents (especially senior citizens) to buy produce, providing healthier food options, allowing for population growth in the county, and providing a place for visitors traveling in the Hocking Hills region to pick up items. 

“You do see a lot more healthier eating,” said Joe Goodman, the store’s site manager who knows the regular customers by name. “Now people are able to get fresh fruit, vegetables and eat healthier.”

McArthur, which has a population of about 1,800 people, also has a Family Dollar and Dollar General so residents who didn’t want to travel outside the county could buy packaged food at those stores, but they were unable to buy fresh fruits and vegetables in the county during that four year gap. 

“There was no fresh vegetable to be had in the county,” Hensley, 66, said. 

The 12,000 square-foot McArthur grocery store was paid for with nearly $1.6 million in incentives and loans to the Campbell Family through the Healthy Food for Ohio (HFFO) program, which works with the Finance Fund Corporation. 

HFFO “supports the development of new and existing grocery stores and other healthy food retail in underserved areas throughout the state” and has funded eight projects since it launched in March 2016, according to its website.

Campbell’s Market, located next to Vinton County High School and Vinton County Middle School, sees anywhere from 100 to 400 customers a day and the store has about 37 employees that are mostly high school students working their first job, Goodman said. 

Campbell’s Market is a fourth-generation grocery store that opened their first location in 1930 and has two other locations in South Zanesville and Duncan Falls. 

Co-owner Beth Campbell remembers seeing firsthand McArthur’s need for a grocery store when she stopped at the Dollar General store and asked someone where they could buy fresh produce. 

“She said we would die for fresh produce in this area,” Campbell said. “That sticks in my mind because I can’t imagine living somewhere that it’s not readily available. We’re so used to just being able to drive five or 10 minutes to get things.”

The Campbells faced challenges with opening their McArthur store. They live about an hour and 20 minutes away and didn’t know the community or what types of products the customers would want. 

But Vinton County welcomed Campbell’s Market with open arms. 

“It’s a tough business when you open a business in a small town,” McArthur Mayor Steve Hammond said. “You’ve got to build trust with people and get them to trust you and the Campbells … built that rapport. … We appreciate them taking the risk. They’re definitely an asset to the community.”

COVID-19 was another challenge the grocery store faced, but Campbell said it actually improved their business since people didn’t want to be around crowds in big box stores. 

“We were worried that it would fall off once everything settled down (with COVID-19), but it’s just improved even since the pandemic and I think people got used to the smaller store,” she said. 

Campbell’s Market has been an asset to the senior citizens in the community — who make up about nearly a fifth of Vinton County’s population, according to the Census Bureau.  

“More people within the area can drive themselves and be more independent, which I think is super because seniors are limited with their driving,” said Vinton County Senior Citizens Center Executive Director Rhoda Toon-Price. “And if they live right here in town, they can go there. They can go at their own convenience, they can go as often as they want to go.” 

When Vinton County was a food desert, volunteers and staff at the senior center drove a total of 150,000 miles in 2016 to take senior citizens to neighboring counties to go grocery shopping. 

“It was just like a big crash (when SuperValu closed),” remembers Toon-Price. “There was just nothing available.”

She played an instrumental role in advocating for a grocery store and is known for holding up a banana at the Ohio Statehouse to show the need for a store.

“How would you like to go 10 miles one way just to get one of these?” she remembers saying. “Or do you want to go to the convenience stores and pay $1 for a single banana wrapped in cellophane?”

She was overjoyed when she heard a grocery store was opening in McArthur. 

“I’m jumping up and down like an idiot saying ‘the Campbells are coming, the Campbells are coming,’ she recalls laughing.  

“It was a blessing”

Virgil Pratt, 70, was doing his weekly shopping at Campbell’s last Monday morning, buying ingredients to make chili for dinner. He has lived in McArthur since 1982 and enjoys the ease of going to Campbell’s. 

“It wasn’t very nice (when SuperValu closed),” he said.  “A lot of people didn’t like it at all. I didn’t because you had to go out of town to get stuff and that sucks, plain and simple.” 

Not only does he enjoy the produce at Campbell’s, he has also benefited from the staff’s friendliness. He has Parkinson’s disease and was once unable to finish his shopping at Campbell’s, so the staff got him a chair, checked out his groceries and helped load up his car. 

“I would have probably ended up on the floor of another store,” he said. 

Kim Bell, who has worked at Campbell’s for five years, remembers traveling 30 miles one way to get groceries.  

“It was a blessing (when the store opened),” the 54-year-old said. 

Vinton County Prosecutor Jim Payne picked up some groceries at Campbell’s Monday afternoon during his lunch break. 

“The majority of people in McArthur and the surrounding township are very happy to have this option,” he said. 

Hammond, who has been mayor since 2020, lived only a couple blocks from SuperValu and would go there most nights to pick up ingredients to cook dinner for himself and his oldest son. 

“We kept very little stuff in the refrigerator because it was so close,” he said. “It was just easy to go pick it up when you needed it.” 

Campbell’s Market keeps money in the community and Hammond typically shops there once or twice a week. 

“It’s good for the people to have that access and have that available to them without having to drive 25 miles to get a head of lettuce or a banana,” Hammond said, who owns Hammond Hardware Store and his own insurance company. 

Having services available like Campbell’s Market attracts people and other businesses to the area. 

“That’s how you grow as a community and as a county,” Hammond said. 

Campbell’s Market is also a place visitors traveling to Hocking Hills can go and pick up items. 

Rylee Grabans, 19, who has worked part-time at Campbell’s for three years, said the store occasionally gets customers from California when they visit Hocking Hills. 

“Everybody comes in and says they love it,” said Grabans, who is studying nursing at Buckeye Hills Career Center. 

Having a grocery store in McArthur will come in handy since Hocking Hills was recently named one of Forbes’ 50 Best Places to Visit this year and reported having more than 4 million visitors annually in 2019.

If it weren’t for Campbell’s Market, it would be tough to have people move to the village or visit the area, Hammond said. 

“If you don’t have something where people can get supplies like fresh meat, fresh produce for grilling out or whatever, it hurts,” Hammond said. “It’s gonna cost you in the long run for sure.”