In the small Lower Alabama town of Headland, just nine miles north of Dothan – where several national grocery chains are located – one independent grocer continues to thrive by doing what the big-box stores can’t – connecting deeply with its community and focusing on fresh, local products. Hometown Food Center, owned by Jai Freeman and part of the Freeman Foods family of stores, has become a cornerstone of Headland since the family purchased the location in 2017.
Freeman’s roots in the grocery industry run deep. His parents, Jimmy and Karen Freeman, opened their first store – Shur-Valu Foods – in 1998 in Dothan, after Jimmy left a job with another independent grocer.
The business eventually grew to six locations. Freeman said two of the six stores were sold and two were destroyed by Hurricane Michael in 2018. The store in Headland and a Pic-N-Save in nearby Colquitt, Georgia, remain.
Since its purchase in 2017, the Headland store has undergone a full renovation, expanding into a neighboring restaurant space and updating nearly every part of the operation.
“Since 2020, everything’s been replaced,” Freeman said. “We’re right at 17,000 square feet here, and about 15,000 square feet in Colquitt. We’re very close to having two fully remodeled stores.”
Freeman grew up in the business, learning every role from meat cutting to store management. “I can do just about any job in here … You name it, I’ve done it – or can fix it.”
Hometown Food Center’s reputation is built on high-quality meat and produce, with much of the latter sourced from local farmers.
“We cut our own meat here. We make our own smoked sausage … we’re just a one-stop shop,” Freeman said.
The store’s emphasis is on freshness and local sourcing. Freeman said they work with four or five large farms in the area to source produce, which “gives us a cheaper price to pass on to the customer. Fresh is what we do best, and we try to do it at the best price possible.”
He added that they also buy produce from local residents’ gardens. “They just come up here, and we pay a market price for it,” Freeman said. “We ensure that our quality of produce is the freshest around.”
Despite competition in nearby Dothan, Freeman believes Hometown’s personal touch and agility give it an advantage.
“We carry a lot of local products that you can’t find in the big box stores – local cornmeal and local honey,” he said. “A traditional big box store or larger chain wouldn’t have the ability or be agile enough to work with those people.”
Freeman also takes pride in offering meat that supports American agriculture.
“All of our fresh meat comes from U.S. farmers,” he said. “It’s all brought in and cut here fresh. We don’t vacuum-seal any fresh meat. It’s all cut that day and sold that day.”
The store employs 25 people in Headland and 14 in Colquitt. While Freeman acknowledges that labor remains a top challenge, he maintains a customer-first approach.
Hometown has adopted modern meat-cutting equipment and automatic wrappers but has resisted installing self-checkouts. “I refuse to put in self-checkouts, because I think it takes away from our main vision of being customer service oriented and your local grocery store,” he said.
Longtime employees also play a vital role in maintaining customer loyalty. The store manager has been there for more than 35 years and the produce manager two decades.
Freeman noted that for those customers who “get to the point in life where they can’t come to the store anymore,” associates will deliver their groceries.
Freeman’s commitment to the community goes beyond the checkout lanes. He’s involved in local events and charities, including the Headland Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on the board of the area Salvation Army.
While the company has facilitated providing food for the Salvation Army’s Christmas program in years past, Freeman said he wanted to do more.
“Last year, we figured out how much each meal was going to be and assigned a dollar amount to that … we allowed our customers to come in and purchase meals [at checkout],” he said. “We were able to give away 250 meals last Christmas.
“We believe that if you’re blessed, you need to give back. And we’ve definitely been blessed.”
Ultimately, Freeman says the greatest reward of being an independent grocer is “seeing everybody’s face light up whenever they come in the door. We give them really great customer service.” He added that when someone says the store looks great, “that is the best feeling in the world to me.”
Freeman and his wife, Megan, who is originally from Headland, have two children – a daughter, 12, and son, 9 – and remain deeply rooted in both the business and the town. “Life is just running around, but we thoroughly enjoy what we do and wouldn’t trade it for the world.”