Economic reality shuts another small-town general store, this time in Canterbury

There are several reasons why the Canterbury Country Store is closing this month, including overwork by its retirement-age owners, but central to them all is the way today’s economy favors the big over the small.

“When you look at food distribution companies — the Syscos, Associated Grocers, those sort of things — you see it,” said David Balshaw, who took over the store with his wife, Jane, in 2023.

Food distribution companies buy items like produce, packaged food and paper products from manufacturers and sell them to retailers like the Canterbury Country Store. That industry has been consolidating.

“Sysco has been acquiring other food distribution companies at a feverish pace all around the country, taking out the small distributors who once would have serviced little stores like ours,” Balshaw said. “Then they come in and say if you want to be a Sysco customer, we won’t show up here for less than a $10,000 delivery. That’s not happening — we don’t even have room to put $10,000 of stuff in our space.”

As a result, he said, the Canterbury Country Store got little income from selling grocery staples. It either couldn’t obtain the items at all or else had to pay a lot more to get them, and therefore had to charge more than supermarkets in neighboring Concord. That price differential meant people didn’t buy many groceries in Canterbury.

“You can’t have low-priced food and be a small provider. It’s not possible,” Balshaw said.

The country store will close by the end of January. Because the building is owned by a community-controlled LLC, there is hope that somebody else can pick it up in some form.

“Maybe a smaller version of the store,” Balshaw said. “We’re happy to give them all of our data.”

In a long Facebook post announcing the closing, the store emphasized the economic reality.

“We get it, we really do. Things are tight and why buy something here when you can get it at Market Basket for less just minutes away? And you have your favorite brands that we may not carry or cannot get access to. And DoorDash is convenient,” is how the Facebook post put it. “But a cafe we are not; we are a grocery store. And a grocery store is not a grocery store without the sales of groceries and a general country store is not a general store with sales in only a couple categories.”

Like virtually all village stores these days, Canterbury had to concentrate on expensive items like gifts, local items and prepared food ranging from morning coffee and pastries to sandwiches and lunches. Those require a lot more work and upfront expense.

“The store was successful at selling on the high end, the prepared foods and things, but that’s also the most labor-intensive and therefore costly part of the business,” Balshaw said.

The two owners did most of the food preparation themselves to ensure consistency and quality. That has become too much for David, 62, and Jane, 71.

“We said we’d do it for five years. We’ve already put in five years worth of hours in 2 1/2 years,” David Balshaw said.

Canterbury is far from alone. Many New England general stores have closed and most of those that are open became specialty food and gift shops because the traditional business model doesn’t support them.

The closing of what is often the only public-facing business in a small town is always a blow and has led to the creation of some non-traditional support systems, such as the Friends of the Harrisville General Store group that regularly raises money for that town’s store.

The Canterbury Country Store has its own unusual history. The building is owned by the Canterbury Community Market, a limited liability corporation that sells shares to people. That LLC was formed to preserve the building and keep a business there, as has been the case dating back to 1767, which lowers the start-up costs of any business locating there.

But that alone, it seems, isn’t enough to keep a traditional general store going.

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