Clintwood Healthy U, a new store that opened in University Plaza over the summer, offers a variety of foods and services to help students live a fit and active lifestyle.
The store specializes in selling natural and organic foods, medicine and other products, as well as offering nutritional consulting. Classes and instructional presentations with a variety of subjects, ranging from yoga to vegetarian cooking, are held weekly.
Jenny Landry, the owner of Clintwood Healthy U, said her battle with cancer was one of the main reasons she opened the store.
“My husband, Todd, is a nutritional consultant, and I started talking to his clients to find ideas that would help stop the spread of chronic diseases,” Jenny Landry said.
The store originally opened as a resource center that specialized in nutritional consulting and information on healthy living, until it added a food section and pharmacy, according to Jenny Landry.
“People started coming to us asking where they could find the proper foods that they needed, so we decided to start selling food at the store,” she said.
Gluten-free foods are found in abundance at Clintwood Healthy U, in addition to organic and natural fruits and vegetables. Products include anything from herbal popcorn to gluten-free pancake mix.
Samples of certain products are offered daily to let customers try before they buy, and each week the store adds new items to their stock in an effort to become a complete one-stop shopping experience.
A product the store just introduced this week is a breakfast box.
“People can come in and create their own boxed breakfast, choosing from a selection of healthy cereals, muffins, bagels, fruits and juices,” Jenny Landry said.
The store also helps promote local businesses by selling their products.
“We bring in fruit, vegetables and cheeses from local farms,” she said.
Handwoven baskets from Africa are sold, in addition to other items that promote fair trade and labor practices, she added.
Frequent shoppers at the store can also obtain a loyalty card that allows the holder to get deals during certain periods. Each dollar spent at the store translates into one point, and after 100 points are accumulated, shoppers can get $5 back.
One of the features of the store that she is most proud of, Jenny Landry said, is the customer service available to shoppers
“Our on-hand consultants are always ready to assist anyone who has a question about a certain product on our store shelves,” she said.
Todd Landry, a consulting pharmacist for Clintwood Healthy U, said people can come in and schedule appointments for nutritional and health consulting.
“Traditional over-the-counter medicine serves more as a ‘Band-Aid’ instead of a permanent fix,” he said.
Todd Landry specializes in functional medication, which is a science aimed at discovering the roots of chronic health problems.
The information available at the store doesn’t end when one walks out the door. Its Web site, clintwoodhealthyu.com, contains health calculators, tools for health assessments and a database of recipes.