When Brad Gruno, founder of Brad’s Raw Foods, decided to adopt a raw food diet six years ago, he started seeing great benefits right away. This type of diet consists of consuming mainly uncooked, unprocessed, organic fruits, raw vegetables and nuts.
Gruno explains that he lost 40 pounds in the first three months, felt better, healthier, had more energy and his complexion cleared. Though he was sold on his new diet, he missed the familiar crunch of chips and other similar snacks.
The world has advanced so quickly that even the monks at Indiana’s Saint Meinrad Archabbey haven’t been able to ignore it. The Benedictine monastery has served the Catholic Church and society through its graduate-level school of theology for lay and priesthood students since 1854.
Since 1867, it has supported this mission through Abbey Press – a diversified company that prints literature and crafts products devoted to the values of its owners, such as faith, friends and family. That message has not changed; its delivery, however, has adjusted as the world has evolved.
“When someone finds out I’m with The ICEE Company, I’ll hear about how they take their kids to Target on the weekend and everybody gets an ICEE,” Fachner explains. “Or [they’ll tell me], ‘I remember when my dad took me to the local convenience store and ICEE was our treat for the weekend.’”
One thing that has not changed for humanity over time is the need to provide food for itself. What has changed, however, is how we go about doing it – from hunting in ancient times to the every day markets of the middle ages, small specialty stores at the beginning of the century and large chain supermarkets nowadays. Even within mammoth supermarkets, the way we learn about our food options and make our choices has changed drastically in the last 10 years.
With the shadow of high unemployment rates permeating news reports, it’s hard to imagine that there is an area of the country with more jobs than people to fill them. At least, that is the impression John Phillips, owner of Regal Oil Inc., has of the economic situation in the region. “It’s strange to see how high the unemployment rate is everywhere, and here in West Texas it’s hard to find employees,” Phillips says.
Purple Cow Stores may be new to the convenience store scene, but the chain has already established itself as the Southeast’s upscale option. With five stores in the Slidell, La., area, eight in Montgomery, Ala., two on the Mississippi coast and one store in Mobile, Ala., and plans to expand, the one-and-a-half-year-old company has moved quickly to gain this foothold. Now it’s time to focus on the details.
The United States has exported many concepts to the rest of the world over the years: blue jeans, fast-food hamburger joints and now warehouse club stores. PriceSmart is a warehouse club based in San Diego but with no retail locations in the United States. This club concept has taken root in 13 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean and is seeing consistent and steady growth.
Ocean State Job Lot CEO Marc Perlman admits the experience of shopping in one of his stores can be confusing in terms of the types of items it stocks at any given time.
