Staff Writer

At last! Fayette foodies sigh contentedly. There's a place to buy natural and organic foods in bulk without trekking all over. And it's only a few minutes west of Peachtree City on Ga. Highway 34.

Dubbed New Creations, this bulk foods emporium looks small at first glance, but is delightfully comprehensive in its inventory of grains, cereals, beans, rice, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices. And it's doubtful anyone anywhere has a more elaborate selection of pasta.

Gourmet coffees and teas samples of which are hospitably offered with fructose and unrefined sugars sit barrel to barrel with honey and syrup that can be decanted into the customer's container.

"The customer chooses how much or how little to buy," says New Creations' flier. The result is that the customer is usually pleasantly surprised by the total on the cash register tape.

Yeast, for example, both for baking and as a nutritional additive, is strikingly cheaper in bulk. So are chocolates, jelly beans, and assorted sprinkles for cookies. The place is a bread baker's dream, although not all of the wide selection of flours is organic.

Immaculately clean and logically organized, New Creations' only serious shortcoming for a nutrition-freak would be the lack of cooking instructions and nutritional values. A bin of pancake/waffle mix, for example, gives no clue as to whether oil or eggs need to be added, nor how high the fat content is and whether it includes cholesterol or saturated fat.

These few omissions are soon to be remedied, says Andy Bond, one-time printer, Navy veteran, ordained Methodist minister, now Pentecostal evangelist and natural foods maven. He and his wife Anne opened the store in late December and have been concentrating on stocking what people want.

For example, he says, "I need pine nuts a lot of people have asked for them. Some things I'll wait to order until folks ask," he continued. "People asked for it, so I have green tea now, although not in unlimited bulk like the other teas."

Bond is looking for recipes that utilize natural foods, and says that for a while at least he'll give a 10 percent discount to customers who bring in recipes to share, but "not too many of the same kind, and recipes they've tried. I'd especially like recipes that use some of the unusual grains like amaranth and quinoa."

Bond says he has been interested in nutritional foods since the early 1980s when he was doing a lot of running. He had done business with a natural food store in Atlanta that prepackaged its merchandise, but last summer when he saw natural foods sold in bulk in Bradenton, Fla., "that was the catalyst" to open a store of his own.

Once he builds his customer base, he hopes to open a second store in Peachtree City.

The fact that most of Bond's products are unit-priced to the pound helps customers compare, although it is startling to see spices like goldenseal root powder labeled at over $107 per pound. He says he does not vary price with quantity, however a product has the same unit-cost whether the customer buys half an ounce or six pounds of it.

He also notes that echinacea root, cut and sifted, runs about $6 per ounce, a real bargain compared with the price of capsules in a health food store.

Most, but not all, of New Creations' selection is organic. "Frontier is my main supplier for herbs, spices, coffees, through Cornucopia, and a lot of their things are organic," Bond said, adding that he recently brought in Mellina's organic pasta sauces.

Bond is a Thomaston, Ga. native, who grew up in Columbus. He and his family, which includes daughters Emily, 13, and Laurie, 11, now live in Newnan. Bond says he will continue his work as an evangelist.