Stern’s Quality Produce to close in White River Junction

Stern’s Quality Produce, the grocer of bargain-price fresh vegetables, fruits and hard-to-find Asian foods, will close at the end of this month. Owned and operated for the past 33 years by Judy and Keith Stern of North Springfield.

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Stern’s Quality Produce to Close in White River Junction Florence and Roy Pang, of Hanover, N.H., laugh while Judy Stern checks them out at Stern’s Quality Produce in White River Junction, Vt., on Dec. 7, 2018. The popular produce store will be closing at the end of the month. (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Judy Stern, owner of Stern’s Quality Produce in White River Junction, Vt., closes the door on Dec. 7, 2018, in White River Junction, Vt. Stern with her husband Keith will be retiring later this month. (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Signs-- one in Chinese-- warn customers at Stern’s Quality Produce to close the door. The popular White River Junction, Vt., produce store will be closing later this month. (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Beth Gray, left, gives customer Sandy Norton, of White River Junction, Vt., on Dec. 7, 2018 a hug after telling her Stern’s Quality Produce will be closing later this month. Gray's family owns the produce store. Norton said she has been coming to shop for years, "It's the best place to get fruits and vegetables all year round." (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Purchase a reprint » Previous Next Previous Next By John Lippman Valley News Business Writer Saturday, December 08, 2018 Print White River Junction VT small business john lippman as seen on instagram @vnewsuv Keith Stern Stern's Quality Produce Judy Stern White River Junction — Stern’s Quality Produce, the grocer of bargain-price fresh vegetables, fruits and hard-to-find Asian foods that has drawn faithful shoppers from around the Upper Valley to its low-slung, shining yellow-painted store on a side street in White River Junction, will close by the end of the month. The decision comes as store manager Judy Stern, who owns the store with her husband, Keith Stern, said that health problems are making it more difficult for her to perform the heavy physical labor involved in running their 33-year-old fresh groceries business. “I’m just tired. I’m going to put my feet up and relax,” Judy Stern said in the back of the store on Friday as she pulled heads of red-leaf lettuce out of a shipping box and slid them into plastic sleeves for display in the store. “It’s been tough.” Judy Stern, 72, said her knees are giving out and require replacement, which also is “throwing out” her hip and making it painful to carry anything weighing more than 15 pounds (and good luck finding a box laden with produce in the grocery business lighter than 15 pounds). “It bothers me quite a bit. I walk like Donald Duck,” she said. The couple added that the perennial challenge of finding workers along with the prospect of greater workplace regulation — talk of a $15-per-hour minimum wage and paid family leave — were adding to the woes of the business they opened in a former ice cream stand in 1985 but, with its cramped space of open bins and wooden tables piled high with vegetables and fruits, feels like walking into a 19th-century neighborhood grocer. “It’s a small business and they are not just customers,” Judy Stern said of those who shop at her market. “They become family.” Judy Stern, who said she’s been working nearly every day of her life since she was a teenager growing up in Indiana, said her daughter and grandson, who both work in the store, are not interested in continuing the business — her daughter, Beth Gray, because a vehicle-involved accident she suffered 18 months ago limits the weight of boxes she can lift and her grandson, Ryan Parzych, because he has decided to pursue a career in nursing. “The store’s been good to us, but it hasn’t made us rich,” she said. Keith Stern, who has run multiple times for statewide office in Vermont, including a recent Republican primary challenge against Gov. Phil Scott, said he is talking with one interested party about buying the store but is uncertain whether the unnamed party will be able to complete the deal. “I should know in a week or so,” he said on Friday, while he and Parzych unloaded the truck filled with boxes of fresh produce that Stern had just driven back from Boston-area markets where he travels to buy produce from suppliers. Keith Stern said his thrice-weekly overnight trips to wholesale produce markets in Chelsea, Mass., and Everett, Mass., begin with him leaving home in North Springfield at midnight and returning to the store more than 12 hours later with a truckload of produce valued at $7,000 to $8,000. The Sterns buy their produce from some 50 different vendors and Keith Stern said he prefers to work with the same ones because that way he is assured of getting what he wants at the price he wants. Although Stern’s does not have the leverage of the big supermarket chains to negotiate down prices, Keith Stern said goodwill and loyalty with his suppliers is nonetheless rewarded with getting a break that he can pass on to customers. “I never dicker on prices,” he said. “So when things are really tight I can get it.” On days he makes market runs, Stern, 64, said it is “16 to 17 hours before I’m finally done.” But despite the grueling hours, Stern said he is somewhat uneasy about ending his lifetime in the grocery business, which he began as a young teenager when he worked for his brother’s produce market in Springfield, which he later acquired and ran for a few years before selling it. “After all these years it feels like I’m letting my customers and suppliers down,” Keith Stern said. “But (Judy’s) ready to retire.” While Keith Stern began to munch on cookies he had picked up off a platter laying on a box, Parzych stood in the truck pulling off stacked grates of mangoes, bananas, tomatoes. blackberries, raspberries, cucumbers, clementines, lettuce and celery and stacking them on a handcart that employee Zach Anderson — the store’s “jack-of-all-trades” who does everything from stocking to running the cash register (on Friday he was wearing a Santa Claus outfit) — wheeled back to the walk-in refrigerators. “Judy had always said you don’t need a lot to be rich,” Anderson volunteered, alluding to the Sterns’ ethos that the store, with its prices well below what supermarket chains charge, is almost as much a public service as it is a business. Stern’s low prices on Friday were written in brightly colored markers on boards above the produce bins and tables: Avocados for $1.25 each; red mangoes for $2 each; long, yellow bananas from Costa Rica and Colombia for 60 cents per pound; sweet potatoes and russet potatoes for 70 cents per pound; cucumbers for 60 cents apiece; long stem celery for $2 a bunch; plump, ruby red radishes for 90 cents per pound; a container of blueberries for $2.50 each and blackberries for $1.25 each. Importantly, Stern’s also supplies several of the Upper Valley’s Asian restaurants, such as Base Camp in Hanover and Yama in West Lebanon, with fresh produce. “They never disappoint,” declared Manoj Kafle, the owner of Base Camp, who said he buys his produce daily from Stern’s for his restaurant’s nightly menu. “Green beans, broccoli, tomatoes, green and red peppers, cucumbers, everything is fresh and the quality is great.” Moreover, Kafle said Stern’s is “cheaper compared to Black River Produce and Upper Valley Produce,” the two major food distributors to restaurants in the Upper Valley. He called the closing of Stern’s “a sad moment” and didn’t know yet where he would source his produce going forward. On Friday, the Sterns were running their store as if nothing was changing. No sign on the door announced that the store would only be open a few more weeks. No announcement was posted on the store’s Facebook page. Nor were Judy or Keith Stern mentioning the subject to customers, which first surfaced earlier in the day on a local website. Customers were crestfallen when they learned Stern’s — unless a buyer steps forward — wouldn’t be around for much longer. Karen Endicott, of Hanover, said she’s been “getting all my fruits and vegetables” here on a weekly shopping trip for “at least 10 years … it’s been a ritual for me.” “Their produce is good and their prices are great,” she said. “It’s a shame,” she said if she will be unable to shop at Stern’s in the future. “It’s been an institution for so long.” “Really?” asked a surprised Patrick Schembri when informed by a reporter that Stern’s would be closing as he stood over the bins filling his basket with avocados, tomatoes and eggs. Schembri, of Hanover, said he’s been stopping in the story “probably every two weeks” for the past 10 years. “It’s not just a good selection, the produce is always fresh,” he said. “They are one of the few places where you can get artichokes most times of the year. The prices are fantastic. I don’t know what we’re going to do — it’s where we get all our produce. “This is one of the hidden gems of the Upper Valley,” he said. John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.