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©
2005 Organic Marketing |
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by
Fred Rohé |
My
first adventure in the natural products trade was in retailing. My store (opened
in San Francisco in 1965) was New Age Natural Foods, and is credited with being
the prototype natural foods store. In 1970 I opened the first natural foods supermarket,
in Palo Alto. There were some other
firsts. The first natural foods restaurant in Northern California, the Good Karma
Café, in San Francisco. Northern California's first natural foods wholesale
company, New Age Distributing Company in San Jose. The first natural foods trade
association, Organic Merchants. In other words, it's fair to say that I was a
natural products pioneer. |
Since I began in this industry, I've only been away from
it for short interludes, either to travel or to write. Maybe you've come
across one of my books. There was The
Zen of Running (originally Bookworks / Random House; now available
as an e-book),
The
Complete Book of Natural Foods (Shambhala / Random House),
Nature's
Kitchen (Garden Way/Harper & Row), and One
Answer to Cancer / Metabolic Ecology (Wedgestone Press). I also
wrote a book for the state of California, Solar
Business Opportunities.
I self-published my most recent book, Eat
Fat! Your Life Depends On It, in 1995. The electronic
version you see being promoted in the right-hand column of this page has
been updated and expanded from the original and represents my first foray into
electronic publishing. |
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Apart from the writing, I've had my hands in just
about every sector of the natural products industry: I've been a wholesaler, salesman,
marketing consultant, broker, farmer, had my own natural products company, and
a marketing agency. But I don't do any of that any more. I do Natural
Health Yellow Pages. And a lot of gardening.
You
should be able to find anything you need or want from the natural products industry
through Natural Health Yellow Pages - that,
at least, is our intention. If you're a consumer and want to find natural product
retailers, or see what various companies are saying about their products, purposes,
plans, etc., Natural Health Yellow Pages
is the place. If you're an industry professional and are interested in sources
and resources, Natural Health Yellow Pages
is the place. But if you can't locate what you need, let us know and we'll do
what we can to make it work better for you. P.S. to
consumers: As a consumer myself, I find some of the trade listings very interesting.
Some of these sites have information you won't find anywhere else about ingredients
you're getting in products. Don't forget that many, probably most, of the products
you buy are really just assembled by the branding companies. Those companies
get the ingredients from materials suppliers you've probably never heard of. That's
why it can be so informative to visit their websites. |
Did you notice I said “our” Natural
Health Yellow Pages website? The
“our” is myself and my wife, Gardenia. She is my partner in Natural Health Yellow
Pages. She joined me in business ventures in 1991, quickly becoming indispensable.
Gardenia handles sales, office management, editing, and supplies abundant humor,
wisdom, and creativity. |
The
other part of "our" is our friend and webmaster, Dr. Chris Tong. If
you like this site and would like this quality of work to represent
you or your business, go to Enchanted
Websites to learn more.
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