HISTORY OF EREWHON - NATURAL FOODS ... - SoyInfo Center

didn’t need such a car, especially as it was designed to be
chauffeur driven and Gloria Swanson, having regained her
health, much preferred driving on her own. Gloria Swanson
replaced the Rolls Royce with a sporty Toyota Celica
(manual transmission, as she preferred) and at the same time
bought my mother a Toyota Corolla (automatic
transmission).”
Follow-up e-mail from Norio on Jan. 20. “Regarding
Gloria Swanson, I know my parents met her through
William Dufty. I also know the story of her getting sick to
the point she had to give up acting only second hand from
Bill Dufty, She did recover through the suggestions from
my father and resumed a long acting career on Broadway in
New York City (NYC). This story may be in Gloria
Swanson’s autobiography Swanson on Swanson, which I
have never read. Yes, the 1970 Toyota Corolla was brand
new and a gift from Gloria Swanson. My mother was once
stopped on the Hollywood Freeway driving this car for
going too slow.
“Gloria Swanson was close enough friends with the
family that if I were in her neighborhood in NYC, near the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, I would stop in to say hello
without prior notice. Gloria Swanson also let me borrow her
Toyota Celica [in Los Angeles] for a few months after I got
my driver’s license since she at that time was living in NYC
full time and didn’t need a car.” Address: Hollywood,
California.
33. LaBel, Murray; Izakowitz, Benjamin; Hillyard, Roger.
1970. Lease agreement signed by Erewhon Trading
Company Inc. in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, California. 2 p.
Oct. 8. Unpublished typescript. 34 cm.
• Summary: This lease was executed on 8 October 1970 by
and between Murray LaBel and Benjamin Izakowitz
(lessors, owners of the building), and Erewhon Trading
Company Inc. (lessee), for a retail and wholesale grocery at
8003 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles. The 2-year lease
commences on 1 July 1971 and ends on 30 June 1973. The
amount of the lease is $225/month. The lease is signed by
the three parties to the agreement. Roger Hillyard (lessee) is
Executive vice president for Erewhon Trading Co. Inc.
Talk with Tom DeSilva, owner of Erewhon–Los
Angeles. 1995. Jan. 17. Tom is quite sure that this is the
earliest lease for the Erewhon retail store in Los Angeles.
From the time the store opened in about Sept. 1969 until the
time of signing this lease, the rent was probably paid on a
month by month basis without a formal lease agreement.
Note: This is the earliest document seen (March 2011)
concerning Erewhon–Los Angeles. Address: Los Angeles,
California.
34. Goldman, M.C. 1970. Southern California–Foodshopper’s
paradise! An exciting burst of organic-living
enthusiasm–among young, old and in-between–has created
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2011
HISTORY OF EREWHON 46
a tidal wave of food shops and more products from Santa
Barbara to San Diego. Organic Gardening and Farming
17(11):38-45. Nov.
• Summary: “Spearheading the surge to organic foods today
is the West Coast’s literal Garden of Eden–the southern half
of Golden California.” And this should be no surprise. A
climate well suited for year-round gardening and farming
join with people of all ages with people interested in natural
foods plus “that rapidly-enlarging segment of the younger
generation now so awake to wholesome eating.
“Actually, a sizable chunk of early interest in organic
ideas belongs to this paradisiacal area. Pioneers like Phil
Arena, Herbert Clarence White, Maria Wilkes, Clarence
Tontz, Lee Anderson and dozens more have all lent the
sunny Southwest locale an aura of organic history-in-the
making.”
In a late July trip from Santa Barbara south to San
Diego the writer observed in shop after shop (there are at
least 300 “health food stores”) along the beautiful Pacific
coastline, streams of young folks–many with surfboards
and/or children in tow–were coming in to buy fresh fruits
and vegetables, whole grains, “juices, kelp and dulse, sea
salt and soy products, breads and eggs.”
Veteran Betty Morales, prolific writer and lecturer,
notes: “The influx of young people is like a blood
transfusion to the health-food business, particularly to the
retailers of organically-grown foods.”
Sun Circle Ranches, based in California, supplied by
some 200 organic farmers (large and small), are the leading
nationwide distributor of organic produce.
In Los Angeles, Erewhon Trading Co., related to the
original shop in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, is only a
year old, yet serves 100 West Coast stores, natural food
restaurants, co-ops and various institutions. Paul Hawken,
president of Erewhon [a macrobiotic company], notes that
even some of the big universities, including UCLA, have
become customers for the popular organic brown rice and
soy sauce.
Jimmy Silver, shop manager, says the store’s retail
clientele consist of about half each younger and older
people. Fresh produce from Sun Circle attracts both. Silver
sells about 1,200 hundred pound bags of brown rice each
month–90% of it wholesale to established shops in L.A. and
other parts of the Southwest. Grown for Erewhon by Wehah
Farms in Richvale, California, it now retails for $16.50 per
100-lb sack.
“Grains from the well-known Arrowhead Mills in Deaf
Smith County, Texas, also make up a sizable segment of
business, says Hawken, a young man who typifies the keen,
forceful drive of the new generation in health foods
marketing. Along with these and rice, soy sauce made from
Japanese organic-grown beans constitutes the biggest
seller–nearly 4,000 gallons a month at $8 by the gallon,
down to $1.20 per pint. Various soybean pastes, such as