Hansen: The local grocery gets more local

When it was announced that Haggen was replacing Albertsons in Laguna Beach I probably reacted like most people: Who?

Haggen is not well known locally, so I went to the grand opening on Tuesday — as I would any other day — with a small grocery list. I was a little apprehensive, to be honest, because I had heard the store trended toward healthy.

I’m not organic but I do prefer my pesticides on the side.

Of course the first thing you notice when you walk to the produce aisle is a big “organic” sign covering what looks like half the area. It’s like the old Albertsons organic section but on steroids.

To its credit, Haggen has fun with the organic hype. There’s a prominent sign in produce that says, “We’ve been organic before it was a thing.”

And more expensive. In a non-scientific survey, most items seemed just a wee bit pricier, essentially a marriage between Whole Foods and a “regular” store.

But I have to admit everything looked unnaturally neat. At least for now, rows of products appeared as if out of some movie — boxes aligned like they were glued together.

I had this conflicting impulse to knock things a little askew to make them look more normal, but then I would have been “that guy” who ruined everything.

The aisles were also tidy and cleared out. No more random displays that you unwittingly plowed into because they weren’t there the day before.

Still there, however, are the people. Thankfully, all the familiar faces you have come to know are working with a bounce in their step. Donning stiff new dark green smocks, they haven’t had time yet to add their flair, but you could tell they were excited.

If there were any glitches, no one was letting on. It felt like a warm and fuzzy GMO-free garden party.

I mean, let’s face it, food is personal. So much revolves around it: the family dinner table, our health, and connection to a broader food chain, like celebrity chefs. Seriously, they had local vendors on nearly every aisle — a la Costco — serving samples like rock stars.

For example, Rusty’s Island Chips from Huntington Beach was giving out crunchy bites of its handmade chips. Rusty, a big Santa Claus look-alike, was on hand but periodically took breaks in the parking lot to smoke a huge cigar.

I chatted with him and he said Haggen called him out of the blue and asked if he wanted some extra business.

“OK,” he told them. “When?”

The store sourced dozens of other local products, according to store director David Looney.

While the store continues to flesh out its inventory, it won’t go too far in one direction or the other. By that I mean, Whole Foods is nice but with a big family of picky kids, who wants 17 varieties of granola cereal?

There’s something to be said for options. Plus, with Haggen’s low-impact approach of keeping the layout similar to the Albertsons, regular shoppers won’t be disoriented.

Even the big chain stores can be different from store to store. You go into one and the wine is on the left; another has it on the right, and yet a third has it in middle delta quadrant in one of those weird half-aisles.

Indeed, like some unusual planetary occurrence, these kinds of grocery events don’t come along very often — or in this way. Imagine if a big chain grocer came in and acquired the smaller, family-owned business. There would be a completely different reaction from the public, especially in Laguna, which would have seen street protests.

Or at least a strongly worded letter.

Followed by a lawsuit because there wasn’t an environmental impact statement.

But I digress.

This is what happens in grocery stores. We stand in the aisle and talk to our neighbors about local issues while surreptitiously glancing in their carts to see what they’re buying.

We get our fresh bread, produce, meat or fish because that’s the way it’s been done in villages for hundreds of years.

Local, sustainable, politically correct shopping — with lots of parking.

It’s perfect for Laguna.

DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at [email protected].