My Loyalty Lies With Mom's

I've been in this industry for a few years. I've watched many trends come and go, and I've frequented many health food stores. I've also worked closely with the owners of 2 local health food stores.

You will notice that a lot of people in this industry, usually nutritionists, align themselves with specific health food stores where they want their clients to shop, or they recommend a certain brand(s) of supplements to their clients.

I'm here to call bullshit. Bullshit on that being for the "greater good" of the client. It's all about one thing: money.

Think about the last time you walked into the health food store. I can pretty much guarantee that your experience ended up being expensive. Whether you purchased only 1 item (if this is the case, please share how you managed to leave a health food store with only ONE item... that takes so much self control!) or you ended up spending 5 million dollars, you likely walked away thinking "wow, that was a small fortune". We've all been there.

Heck, I've spent THOUSANDS at health food stores over the years. Literally, thousands.

But here is what I've learned.

- I have yet to meet an owner of a health food store that is not completely insane. This may seem like a blanket statement, but this industry has BOOMED over the years, and health food store owners have raked in some serious money because of it. It's cut throat, competitive, and full of misinformation. Most of these owners have become incredibly business savvy, finding a million different ways to benefit from the massive amount of people looking to eat healthy. Some health food stores have done better than others - the ones that haven't done as well, spend their days in jealousy desperately trying to be like the health food store down the road with better business. It makes for some cray-cray owners.

- All health food stores have massive mark-up's on their items. All. Of. Them. There is one local health food store in particular, who purchases a "Superfood" bag salad from the same supplier that provides these EXACT SAME salads to No Frills. They take the salads out of the bags, put them in plastic containers, and sell them for $3-$5 more. Some of the larger health food stores purchase large quantities of supplements at a time, with expiry dates 2-3 years into the future. This gives them a lower price directly from the supplier, and they usually also get "bonus" items too (think Cliff Bars and little protein shake samples). These stores then sell those "bonus" items to customers as well, when they wouldn't have paid a cent for it. Then they also sell these supplements they purchased in bulk for less money than a competitor because their purchase price was lower. They still add a significant mark-up to the item in question, but it takes business away from the smaller stores because they undercharge them. Don't get me wrong, there IS regulation on how much items can be sold for in the industry - but it is specifically enforced by the makers of the supplements and other items themselves. They each have a "minimum" health food stores can price the items for. But there is no "fine" for undercharging - the brands just sternly speak to the owner of the store, and the owner changes the price of the item in question. If there is enforcement than that, I never ever heard of it.

- It's very likely that if you have frequented the same health food store (or really, different ones in the same city), you will notice that other than MAYBE one employee, there is a high turn over rate for employees. Big stores in particular are good for this. Because this industry has been doing so well, there is a surplus of Nutritionists, and similar, who want to work within the industry for first hand experience. There are piles and piles of resumes sent into health food stores, they can actually afford to keep flying through employees until they find one that "sticks". But remember when I mentioned the bigger health food stores that purchase supplements and other items in bulk so they can price their items lower than a smaller competitor? They can also afford to do this because their pay their employees hardly more than minimum wage. OR they just pay them minimum wage. If you go to the same store consistently, you will get to know the employees and it's always very clear whether they like their job. I know one store in particular - a smaller, local store - where the employees don't even care that customers overhear their dislike of the owners. They all hate it there. This store has a very high turnover rate with the exception of one loyal employee, who after a decade of working there makes hardly over minimum wage. This can also be a continuation of my first point, that the owners are crazy and hard to work with. High turnover rate at your store? It's probably because the owners and management are hard to please and are just plain crazy.

I know, I've made an incredible amount of blanket statements in this post. But I'm loyal to the mom's who want to feed their families healthy food and have them not spend a fortune doing so. While supporting small businesses is something I'm very passionate about, I think it's equally important to find businesses that deserve the loyalty and your patronage.

Here is a list of the things I've done over the years to support local AND feed my family healthy meals:

- Go to your farmers market. These are the people you should be supporting! They are hard working individuals and small businesses who hustle 24/7 and have EXCELLENT customer service. I've never once been disappointed by a visit to my local farmers market. We have a honey guy who knows us by name and has the BEST honey we've ever tasted, we have a soap lady who also knows us by name, talks to the kids and EVEN takes requests for new products (https://www.beachbabybb.com/ ....Hi Jess!). There's local produce that is cheaper than going to Loblaws or a local health food store that re-packages salads. It's worth supporting, hands down.

- Follow the Dirty Dozen & the Clean 15 list, which is specifically evaluated each year by The Environmental Working Group. (https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/). This list provides a guide for buying produce that is with the least amount of pesticides possible. The Clean 15 list is the list of produce items that are low in pesticides and safe to buy from traditional grocery stores. The Dirty Dozen list is produce that should ALWAYS be purchased organic. We know how expensive it is to buy all organic, this list makes it more affordable.

- Find local farms. We go to Moondance Organic Gardens (https://moondanceorganics.ca/about) for produce during the summer months and it's seriously amazeballs. It's beautiful, has delicious produce, the kids can get involved in helping harvest veggies, and they offer classes to help you become a super cool hippie. We love it there. We also go to Nicholyn Farms close to us for our meat (https://www.nicholyn.com/).... and they happen to also be a vendor at our Farmer's Market every Saturday so we don't have to drive outside the city to visit them. Win Win!

- Research, research, research! Read everything you can get on supplement brands, go to the health food stores and ask questions, see if you can find Canadian brands of high quality. Find peer reviewed studies. Never buy a supplement because it's cheap. NEVER EVER. Don't buy your supplements from chain grocery stores, or Costco. Never compromise quality for price. This also goes hand in hand with unless you are near death or have a very serious disease, you don't need to take 10+ supplements a day. I am also here for recommendations on favourite and trusted brands. Just ask!

- When you go to a health food store, engage the employees and ask things like "how do you like working here?". Ask again after you spoken to them 10 times.

- Don't go to health professionals that promote one specific brand of supplement or always the same health food store. If they get paid to recommend it, how do you know it's worth YOUR money?

I hesitated posting something like this, but after the years of watching families spend a fortune doing what is best for their family - and being one of those myself! I knew I had to speak up. Doing what is best for our family should not effect our bottom line. It shouldn't have to cost me a fortune to feed my family healthy meals. There are a lot of mom's out there who can't afford all organic produce, or to pay for overpriced re-packaged salads, and they need to budget the crap out of their groceries for the week. This blog post is for those mom's. I want everyone to know that there IS a way to feed your family the best and most delicious food while not spending a fortune. 

I'll be sure to elaborate and post more, please send me a message if you have questions or want more information.

And Happy Mother's Day to all the Mama's!