Balloons, banners and party food marked the end of a little Tyneside institution - and helped to mask genuine sadness. David Whetstone reports on the closure of Mandala Wholefoods.

The second impression, once the door was open, hit not the eyes but the nose. The smell of the place was fantastic, like bottled flower power. As each of the impressive array of jars was opened, it would add its distinctive whiff to the all-enveloping and heady aroma.

Mandala Wholefoods, on the corner of Manor House Road and Devonshire Place in Jesmond, was established as a co-operative - fashionable at the time - in 1975

Its members took wages totalling £100 a week for running a shop which stocked the things you simply couldn't find in the supermarkets.

It catered for vegetarians, vegans and all manner of complicated non-carnivorous dietary requirements. When organic became the in-thing, it supplied organic. When macrobiotic entered the public consciousness, it could handle that too.

The premises had been a shop before but never had it drawn its customers from such a wide area. As the only supplier of many an exotic ingredient, it had pulling power. Friendships were forged in Mandala and new interests nurtured.

Gordon Bell took over the shop in 1987. He and his wife, Dorothy, had previously had a shop in Sedgefield called Open Sesame, a gift shop which sold everything.

But they stayed faithful to the Mandala ethic and to its loyal customers. Gordon introduced new lines as vegetarianism ceased to be freakish and entered the mainstream.

On the last day of trading - Thursday - the depleted stock was still recognisably Mandala. Meatless mince and dumplings, chestnut puree, organic cornflakes, Green & Black's organic hot chocolate, aduki beans (organic, of course), rice flour, stoneground millet, brown rice vinegar were there to tempt (or repel) the browser.

You could still pick up oils and balms, find out the address of a local therapist, in a range of disciplines, or even buy a print in aid of a soup kitchen for the homeless in Kathmandu.

As I talked to Gordon, one of the last Mandala customers asked for some potted plants - supplied, as they had been for years, by a lady along the road - to be put aside while she went for acupuncture. Two men came to take the old weighing scales away. Sad.

"Yes, it is a bit," agreed Gordon. "I have come to terms with it but you keep getting caught up with the trauma of the customers. Some have been quite upset."

The reasons for Mandala's closure are many and complex but among them is the fact that times are changing. Supermarkets have moved in, stocking products they once wouldn't have allowed shelf-room, and Mandala no longer has the specialist market to itself.

Eating habits have changed too. "The last 10 years have seen the growth in convenience foods, cafes, restaurants and hot food outlets," said Gordon. "Now people cook less and watch TV cookery programmes while eating a take-away instead." He wasn't bitter, he said. "That's a negative thing that eats you up - but you could say I do have strong views."

He talked of the "super-glossy-shiny-clinical-sterile" look of many a modern shop, forced by tighter health and safety legislation. Mandala, rustic-looking and sensitive to fashion only in terms of what it stocked, may have seemed out of step to some.

Gordon suggested that the graduates who established the place were not like modern students, hooked on burgers and snacks. Back in the 1970s students did seek out alternative foodstuffs and were prepared to cook. To be veggie was to be radical.

Gordon plans to concentrate on teaching Reiki, a Japanese technique and what he calls "one of the most effective pain and stress reduction and energy renewal systems based on palm healing". He already has a high level of expertise.

Probably his customers will be able to find most of the products Mandala stocked elsewhere. But the swapshop of advice and melting pot of products only comes from long years of dedication and experience. It doesn't carry a brand name.

Flashback: The co-operative members who set up Mandala in 1975.