Supporting your health and wellness, close to home
Shopping locally for your health and wellness products lets you connect with a knowledgeable team that can help ensure you know exactly what you’re buying, notes Monica Haukenfrers, manager of Vitality Health Foods. Photo courtesy City of Wetaskiwin
When it comes to health foods, supplements and related products, there are many benefits to shopping locally.
There’s the support for local small businesses – key for a thriving, vital community – and the opportunity to find the things you want, close to home.
But you’re also tapping into local knowledge and expertise you won’t find at a big box store or online, where it’s difficult to know what you’re buying, let alone whether it will do what you want it to do.
In fact, one of the best reasons to shop locally is simple: You know what you’re getting and can explore your options with a knowledgeable, experienced health and wellness team, notes Monica Haukenfrers, manager of Vitality Health Foods in the Wetaskiwin Mall.
The Vitality Health Foods staff are well-versed in Health Canada guidelines and reputable companies that stand behind their products – not always the case with online purchases. They also undertake ongoing training and education, ensuring they’re providing the most current information to help guide their many longstanding clients.
“Wetaskiwin has always been a very health-conscious community, but interest certainly is growing.
“And our customers appreciate the opportunity to buy what they need close to home – many were with us when we first opened our doors and are still with us today,” says Monica, who was herself the store’s first employee, now manager!
Vitality Health Foods in the Wetaskiwin Mall has been supporting the community’s health and wellness for 10 years. Photo courtesy City of Wetaskiwin
Located in the Wetaskiwin Mall, surrounded by Alberta Health Home Care, Care Gateway Pharmacy and Medical Clinic, Vision Masters and Prairie Grove Psychology, Vitality Health Foods opened their doors a little over 10 years ago.
The store carries a wide variety of supplements, sports nutrition and some food products. With many brands to choose from, most are Canadian-owned, such as Natural Factors, a family-owned business headquartered in B.C. which owns more than 1,000 acres of certified organic farmland to produce some of their products.
Isura, an independent lab, tests their products for over 800 possible contaminants to make sure the consumer is purchasing clean and safe products, Monica says, noting that similar stringent testing is done by the majority of the Canadian suppliers.
Other guaranteed quality brands on the Vitality Health Foods shelves include Naka, Platinum, CanPrev, Nature’s Way Organika, AOR, Healthology and many more.
Vitality is proud of the loyalty of their customers and says ‘thank you’ with a monthly Customer Appreciation Day (the first Tuesday and Wednesday of the month) and a VIP program that offers 15 per cent off regular-priced merchandise.
“It’s a great benefit,” Monica says. By signing up for the program, not only do you get the discount but they can look up the history of products you’ve purchased – helpful whether you want to ensure you’re getting the same product or need to try something different.
Visit Monica and the Vitality Health Foods team today in the Wetaskiwin Mall, or call
This business profile is part of a series from Wetaskiwin’s Economic Development office. To learn more about initiatives to grow local business and industry, visit wetaskiwin.ca/831/Invest-Wetaskiwin.
READ MORE: A sweet success in the heart of Wetaskiwin