My Biz: Tipton grocery store expanding, marking 50 years in business

While Ronda Fields walks the aisles of Family Foods in Tipton, she casually talks with each employee and waves hello to her fellow customers.

In a larger store, she said, you may never know the person handing you the meat over the deli counter or directing you to the correct aisle.

But at Family Foods, that's never the case.

'You usually talk the whole way through,” said the 50-year-old Tipton native.

This personableness is one of the reasons Fields keeps shopping at the local, family-owned store.

To mark 50 years in business, the store will be expanding from 20,000 square feet to 26,000 square feet. It has been 25 years since the last upgrade.

As a local store in a small town surrounded by larger towns, Family Foods' main competition is chains such as Wal-Mart or Hy-Vee. Mike Goetz, the Tipton store's owner, said it's important to remain integrated into the community.

'We try and offer a good quality product at a fair price and we try to do it with better service than the big stores,” he said. 'I think that's important, you can't just be in town. In a small town, you have to be part of the community.”

Goetz, who has been with the business since his father started the store in 1964, said they'll always be a small town store.

'I doubt we'd ever go into a big city because it's so competitive,” he said. 'We're just not aligned ... the Hy-Vees and Fairways pretty much have those locked up. And the Wal-Marts.”

Tipton's Family Foods employs 20 people who have been with the store for ten or more years. They rely on personable customer service, such as bringing customers straight to the product they are looking for and offering to carry groceries out to cars. They also try to offer specialized or local products.

But, Goetz said, it's getting harder every year.

'I worry about it every day,” he said. 'I think we're positioned pretty well to stay in business but ... you don't know what's going to happen a year from now, a week from now.”

Kenneth Brown, associate dean of undergraduate programs in the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa, said as far as small business goes, Goetz and Family Foods seem to be doing the right thing.

'The grow or die is in many ways a trap. It is one solution,” he said. 'What small businesses need to do is instead of thinking about grow or die, (think about) how can they connect with the local customers to create loyalty so they wouldn't even think of going (somewhere else).”

Customer appreciation is key, said David Hensley, the executive director of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center at the UI.

'When you own a small business, you have opportunities to build strong customer relationships,” he said. 'You can understand that customer ... and then you can offer a unique customer solution.”

Goetz has been practicing this with his customers for years.

'If you do things right and help the customer, hopefully they'll repay you,” he said.

AT A GLANCE

' Owner: Mike Goetz

' Business: Family Foods

' Address: 610 Cedar St., Tipton

' Phone number: (563) 886-2143

' Website: http://www.familyfoodsia.com/