What is Ellwood Thompson’s now? That feels like a fair question most people should be asking right now after this week’s news that the company that owns one of Richmond’s most recognizable stores is being taken over by another company whose primary business is data centers and AI infrastructure.
“Good for the community, and good for the planet” is listed as a core principle on Ellwood Thompson’s website. How can an environmentally conscious and sustainability-focused company align itself with an industry facing so much criticism for its impact on those very things?
This feels like the end.
For longtime residents, Ellwood Thompson’s is a local hub for the health-conscious and locally focused, and people have supported it for that
For decades, it was part of the local grocery ecosystem. You had Ukrop’s, the homegrown institution that felt like an oversized corner market where you went for not only groceries but prepared foods, fried chicken, and those little Rainbow Cookies.
Across the street, Ellwood Thompson’s was, and still is, the counterpoint. It’s the healthier, fancier and crunchier hippie alternative. Before every major grocery store had an organic section or used “buy local” in its marketing, Ellwood was making it a core part of its business. It was a leader in teaching city residents what that meant and why supporting them mattered.
As much as Ukrop’s became foundational to a certain segment of the city for what it did, Ellwood was right there educating residents on what a more modern version of food and healthy living in Richmond could look like.
Started back in 1989 as City Market at Patterson and Libbie before moving to its current location in 1993. Founder Rick Hood eventually became sole owner and built the 20,000-square-foot market into what Richmond Magazine described as the largest independent organic and natural food store in Virginia.
And it survived as the grocery business around it changed dramatically.
Today, Ellwood sits in what has to be one of the most competitive grocery clusters anywhere in Richmond. Ukrop’s disappeared as a supermarket chain. Anyone remember Martin’s? That came and went. Then Kroger, Publix and The Fresh Market opened practically on the same block, each competing for some version of the same customer.
Ellwood survived because it wasn’t any of them.
Then things changed. In 2023, Hood sold the business after nearly 35 years to Healthier Choices Management Corp., a publicly traded company based in Florida that owned a collection of food- and wellness-based businesses along with vape retail operations and vaporizer-related intellectual property. They said that the Ellwood Thompson’s brand, staff, culture and products would remain the same.
In 2024, Healthier Choices spun off its grocery and wellness businesses, including Ellwood Thompson’s, into a separate publicly traded company called Healthy Choice Wellness Corp.
A few years later, Healthy Choice Wellness is now combining with Host Digital Infrastructure, a company focused on developing and operating data centers.
On paper, this isn’t an equal partnership. If the deal closes, Host Digital will control roughly 96 percent of the combined company, Host Digital CEO Harmol Samra will take over as CEO, and Healthy Choice Wellness will change its name. The existing grocery operations will continue as a division of the new company, but in practical terms, control of Ellwood is shifting to Host Digital.
How do those two identities coexist?
There are deep concerns across the Richmond region about the environmental impact of data centers, from water consumption and electricity demand to land use, noise, transmission infrastructure and costs associated with supporting them.
These are the kinds of issues you would think a typical Ellwood Thompson’s shopper would be concerned about, yet the store’s parent company is now tied directly to the industry at the center of that debate. The company says it plans to streamline operations with the use of AI. If you’ve seen the growing local distrust online over its potential to displace workers while driving up demand for basic utilities, that message isn’t going to sit well with a lot of people here.
Ellwood still promotes almost the exact opposite message. Where does your food come from? Support local farmers and local jobs. Reduce waste. Consider the environmental consequences of what you consume. Essentially, do good for yourself and everything around you. Look out for Mother Earth.
But Ellwood’s biggest problem may be that while it still presents itself as a homegrown Richmond store, it no longer is one.
Its greatest competitive advantage was never price or convenience. You knew you were going to pay more there, but the employees seemed happy to be there and locals wanted to support the store as much as they wanted the products on the shelves. And you knew that by shopping there, you were also supporting local farmers and producers throughout the region.
And what exactly is Ellwood Thompson’s now?
It is still a grocery store staffed by good people who sell local produce and organic food. These people have nothing to do with any corporate transaction happening above them. But Ellwood is also something of an experiment now. Will Richmonders continue spending their money there knowing all of this? Maybe none of this matters to most people, and maybe none of it ultimately changes what happens inside the store.
For me, it adds another layer to the decision of where I spend my money that wasn’t there before.
Maybe Ellwood survives all of this. I hope it does.
But we’re also getting a glimpse of what our growing city is becoming, and I’m not sure I’m a fan.
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