Taking organic food from a “hippy enclave to middle-of-the-road organic store” has been a labour of love for Wanaka’s Paul O’Hara, who clocked up 20 years at the helm of Soulfood Organic Store last month.

Twenty years ago there was nowhere to buy organic food in Wanaka, and Paul saw the opportunity to set up a store after he realised Wanaka was his “soul’s home”.

Paul, who has a science degree and teacher training qualification, had lived in Wanaka for a few years in the early 1990s, after he moved here to help his friend Mac set up Kai Whakapai. After a few months at Kai, Paul gravitated to nearby Pembroke Mall, joining a group of locals establishing a New Age shop called Centre of the Universe.

In those days Wanaka had a lot of unemployment and under-employment. “There was quite a scene of young, alternative spiritual people,” Paul said.

Paul was already an astrologer, and the Centre of the Universe was his training ground. He discovered astrology after the suicide of his father, and after realising teaching was not his calling. He had a chart reading with a North Island astrologer, who went on to train him.

It may seem odd for a science graduate to delve into astrology, but Paul says: “I approached astrology from a scientific point of view. It made sense that the planets affected us. We might not understand it, but humans don’t understand everything.”

After a few years Paul moved to Auckland to become a professional astrologer, a “heady” role he undertook for two years before the need for “a real job” became clear. His next role was as a carer for IHC (which provides services to people with intellectual disabilities and their families).

“I was thrown in the deep end,” he said. “It really brought me into my body, into physical reality. I learnt a lot about human beings, about the mind and the heart.”

While on a holiday to Wanaka in 1998, Paul, who had been “getting into organics” in the North Island, experienced a heartfelt pull. “My Soul said to me, you need to move back here, this is where you need to be.”

He needed a job though, and hit upon setting up an organics store. With help from the Centre of the Universe Trust, he and a few supportive friends set up shop in Pembroke Mall. Paul lived in his van behind the shop, with his cat and dog, for the first couple of months - with the Wanaka police keeping an eye on him.

Soulfood had been open for just eight months when the big flood of November 1999 hit.

“Water was waist deep in the shop. We had no insurance,” Paul said. Simon Cassie, Greg Inwood, Kerryn Easterbrook and many others moved everything out by boat - and no stock was lost.

The group moved Soulfood into the foyer of Cinema Paradiso (in its original location on Ardmore Street) for a few months until the shop was rebuilt. “Calum MacLeod was very generous.”

But Paul had decided the shop needed a new location, and when The Paper Place on Ardmore St closed down Soulfood moved up the road.

Paul proposed the group buy the shop from the Centre of the Universe Trust to finance the move. Greg Inwood, Ben Elms, and Matthew Murchie joined Paul when Soulfood became a company, Pataka (storehouse in Maori) Wanaka Ltd, in 2003.

Matthew was chef for a few months before moving out of town; chief coffee maker Greg got cabin fever after two years and went landscaping; Ben left town temporarily (he is now the famous Dr Compost). Paul bought them out one by one.

The shop was struggling but Paul said the decision to keep going felt right. “I’m not one for giving up.” He kept up astrology readings and Te Reo teaching on the side (he took Maori studies at Massey).

Living without power or phone (on a patch of land near the Cardrona River), eating shop left-overs, and using his bike for transport, Paul’s expenses were literally “next to nothing”. He kept the shop afloat this way until 2010.

Things were already tight when a new landlord increased the rent. Paul endured two years of pressure from the landlord, who wanted Soulfood and its “long-haired hippy” proprietor out.

It led Paul to take a “good hard look” at the business. He got rid of the coffee machine, stopped making daily bread, and focused on the shop. It worked: within 12 months the business was doing quite well, and within two years it was doing really well. In 2015 he took on the space upstairs to sell healthcare, body care and medicinal products.

For years, people had been asking Paul to set up Soulfood over the hill, and in 2015 Paul began negotiations to establish Soulfood Queenstown, which recently opened in Frankton.

His focus is now on “solidifying” the Queenstown business, and he says Soulfood Wanaka may be moving to a new location with better parking - although this is still in the conceptual phase.

In the past 20 years Paul has seen organics go from niche to mainstream.

“It’s no longer a fringe thing. When we first opened, you couldn’t get anything organic anywhere else in Wanaka.”

Ironically, he’s “not a staunch organics person”.

“Just because it’s certified organic doesn’t mean it’s healthy, and just because it’s not certified organic doesn’t mean it’s unhealthy. Food is one part of life, it’s not everything. We need to look at our whole lifestyle and build health into that.”

It’s a hint at Paul’s other interests: his adherence to the Universal Medicine philosophy of life, his move away from the astrology he knew, and his return to a love of science. Paul now writes about science and nature (see his views on quantum mechanics here), and says he has moved from looking outside himself for meaning, to looking within to his own heart.

Paul’s beliefs and values have an impact on the way he operates the 20-year-old business of Soulfood, he says. “It’s about people, it’s about respect.”

PHOTOS: Wanaka App