E.M. Heath, your 'Dealer in Most Everything' for 70 years

CENTER HARBOR — In 1945, Everett and Madeline Heath opened the doors to their business with the goal of selling anything that their customers wanted to buy. With a company motto, "Dealer in Most Everything," the Heaths' original store has grown to include a hardware store, two country stores and the region's only locally-owned, independent supermarket. To mark the company's 70th year in business, E.M. Heath Supermarket is offering special prices and events through Saturday.

Dave Petell, president of E.M. Heath Inc., said the company's history began in the building in Center Harbor that currently houses Yikes!. Everett's ambition was to run the best wide-variety general store in the region. "He had hardware, groceries, clothing, grain, gasoline — if someone wanted something, he'd find a way to sell it to them," said Petell.

In 1969, the grocery end of the business had grown such that Everett built a building across the street to house a stand-alone grocery store. By this time, Robert, his oldest son, had joined the business. In 1988, when Robert had taken over management of the company, the supermarket was moved to the then-new building it currently occupies. The building that originally held the grocery store is now home to E.M. Heath's TrueValue hardware store. In addition to those properties, the company also operates two country stores: JoJo's on Moultonborough Neck, and Golden Pond in Holderness.

"This has been a very good year for us," Petell said. "Traffic in summer in the Lakes Region was excellent." The company does about four times as much business during summer as it does during the off-season, although JoJo's is the only store that closes for the winter. Staying open though the winter presents an annual financial challenge for Petell, but it also means that he can keep all of his full-time employees. And that's critical, because those employees provide the service that he sees as the foundation of his business. The company employs about 100 people year-round, and will add another 50 during the summer.

"Customer service is what we have to be best at. We can't always compete on price, but we can offer better service, a better shopping experience," Petell said. "One of the advantages that you have as an independent is our managers have full flexibility to serve our customers."

E.M. Heath Inc. also prides itself on supporting the local community, both through hundreds of donations each year to charitable efforts, and by partnering with dozens of local farms and bakers to sell their products. "That's just who we are, we feel strongly about supporting our community... We try to do the right thing by our community."

Petell invited the community to visit E.M. Heath Supermarket this week to celebrate 70 years of being a "dealer in most everything." "We hope people stop in, we've got things going on every day down there."