Valley Bounty: Local Cheers of Southampton: Puza’s Pure Food Market

Upon walking in the door at Puza’s Pure Food Market, a commitment to fresh, local produce is on display. Visually, produce seems to fill a substantial portion of the store. As the harvest season eases towards the holidays, bins and baskets overflow with gigantic cabbage for golumpki, bags of onions and potatoes straight from our region’s famous soil.

Siblings Vicky Puza-Allen and Josh Puza are the fourth-generation co-managers of the family-owned and operated Puza’s Pure Food Market. From the moment their great-grandfather, Boleslaw Puza, came from Poland to Westfield, feeding the community has been the family’s vocation. Raising chickens and goats on his farm, Boleslaw Puza sold chicken and goat meat door-to-door.

After a brief tenure in Holyoke, Boleslaw’s son, William Puza, opened the Pure Food Market in 1949 in Westfield on North Elm Street, at the location of the North Elm Butcher Block shop (that business is also in the family under the care of cousins to the Puza’s Market siblings).

In 1964, brothers Don and Bill Puza opened a large supermarket in Southampton, but local produce was Don Puza’s passion. In 1988, Don Puza, father of Vicky Puza-Allen and Josh Puza, moved the store to 31 College Highway in Southampton. As Don Puza taught his children to run the store, supporting local farmers was the priority for the store. Puza-Allen says, “Dad became very friendly with a lot of local farmers. He believed in supporting them first, and Josh kept that going.”

Josh Puza explains that he kept the farm relationships that began with his father. Some of the farmers of his father’s generation have passed, and now Josh Puza works with the sons of those farmers to procure local produce for the store.

Puza-Allen notes “many of the farmers are short-handed too, and so Josh uses his own vehicle to run back and forth between farms and the store.” Josh Puza continues, “During the heavy season when everything’s coming in, I’m pretty much going to farms on a daily basis to pick up produce for our store.”

The produce aisle is a mini roll call for local farms throughout our region: Wendolowski Farm, Bashista Orchards, Fini Farm, Bardwell Farm. The siblings note they work with too many farms to name, but additional farms include Fairview Farm in the spring, and Kosinski Farms. Soon the store will offer Christmas logs, wreaths, swags, and kissing balls from Gooseberry Farms.

Josh Puza notes, “The North Hadley Sugar Shack stepped in when a supplier decided of the blue to no longer wholesale. The farms know my customers and they know what I can move.”

“It’s an old fashioned ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours arrangement,’” Puza-Allen notes. “They want to see our store succeed. The farms support a family-owned market because they are family-owned as well.”

Times have changed, and foods come in and out of fashion. Puza-Allen explains that while Don Puza ran the market, “he kept to the basics: lettuce, onions, potatoes. He insisted we always keep the ingredients for boiled dinners.”

The siblings banter as they recall the gradual change in produce offerings from the farms that made their way into the store. Josh Puza chuckles about their father’s response to kale: “Don’t waste your money. We don’t need that.” And to leeks: “giant scallions.” As time moved on, Josh introduced a greater variety of produce to the store, including fresh radishes, purple-top turnips, and beets with the greens attached.

Don Puza centered the business on serving the local community, by supplying local churches cabbage for their Polish holiday food sales of golumpki, sauerkraut, kapusta, and pierogi. His children have continued this tradition, and Josh Puza notes, “Cabbage is one of our biggest crops.”

A bin of cabbage might contain 80-120 cabbages, depending on the size of each vegetable. The store will sell a bin of cabbage every other day. “Our customers know that when they need big, blocky heads of cabbage, they’re coming here to get what they want,” says Josh Puza.

The siblings honor arrangements established by their father, ensuring best pricing on cabbage and other produce for churches and other civic organizations in the community. Puza-Allen notes, “We still have people telling us stories about how our dad helped them.”

Josh Puza says, “I don’t like to go too high on produce, so people can afford it. I do my best to match the prices of other stores.” The store accepts SNAP so that fresh produce is accessible to more people.

While produce takes center stage at Puza’s Pure Food Market, their in-store butcher shop and salads have drawn loyal customers over the decades. “We specialize in cutting our own meats to order, all our deli salads are made in-store using fresh, local produce in season. If the farmers are out there,

we’re using their produce. It depends on the season, of course,” says Puza-Allen.

The store features fresh “heat and eat” items that are made daily, and include golumpki, lazy pierogi, chop suey, and more. “Everything is made here with local ingredients,” Puza-Allen notes. “I hope people continue to support us and all our hard workers.”

Growing up in the store, the siblings still enjoy their community market. Josh Puza quips, “We’re almost the Cheers of Southampton. We really do know almost everybody by name. It’s fun when someone comes in and is genuinely excited to find cabbage or a honeynut squash.”

Lisa Goodrich is a Communications Coordinator with Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA). For hours and more information, check out Puza’s Pure Food sales flyer each week in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and on their Facebook page.