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Listening to customers is store’s priority
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
Nancy Fox doesn’t stop.
She sees a customer in her health food store and she has to help.
A customer asks about turmeric, and Fox quickly starts to list its benefits and how it works.
Some would say she’s a walking encyclopedia, but she will say she’s a listener who wants to make sure her customers pick up the right product for their health.
“Most people who shop here are kind people,” she said. “They are trying to be kinder to themselves and to the Earth. Organics is all about being kind to anything.”
Fox got her start in the health world at age 3 when she would help roll vitamin C packs to send out in mailers.
Her father, Cyril Nickoloff, started the Health Food Center in 1947 after his wife, Jane, urged him to do so. Originally, the late Nickoloffs were selling dietetic and diabetic foods, vitamins and juices at a downtown Youngstown location on Federal Plaza West.
Business was good because Cyril and Jane focused on the customers and built up a large clientele.
“They taught me how to listen to people,” Fox said.
Fox, who runs the store with her husband, Ed, worked at the store in high school, went away to college and then came back.
“Probably in the 1990s I knew I would stay,” she said.
In 2001, the store relocated to 6015 Market St., and the expansion came.
Its shelves are lined with bottles of vitamins, enzymes, minerals, skin-care lines, natural makeup, organic products, gluten-free options and even items for pets.
At the back of the store are the essential oils that many customers love.
“My favorite is to get everyone on a good multivitamin,” she said.
Fox also talks up the benefits of both fish oil and turmeric. Many say turmeric, the spice that gives curry its yellow color, is the most effective nutritional supplement. Curcumin is the main ingredient of turmeric. It’s an anti-inflammatory and a strong antioxidant.
Judy Briceland of Canfield started to shop at the Health Food Center five years ago. She decided to go after she was diagnosed with cancer. Briceland had always tried to be healthy before her diagnosis, but after, she wanted to pick up some oils to help her in the healing process.
“I have a chest of oils at home,” Briceland said. “It’s all in the application.”
Briceland, now cancer-free, exercises, uses the oils and breathes.
“It’s important to breathe right – to take deep breaths,” she said.
She still comes to the store to get more oils and check out some of the other products.
“They are so helpful,” Briceland said. “They allow me to walk through and read. They have testers. If I have a question and they don’t have the answer, they have resources to learn.”
The Health Food Store remains competitive by staying on top of its prices and working with customers one-on-one.
“We are convenience- and service-oriented,” Fox said.
The store doesn’t have its products for sale online, but the Foxes have considered that leap.
Last year, the Foxes purchased the building next to the Health Food Center to have more storage space and for the additional parking. The building is still under construction.
“It’s just getting started,” Fox said.
For more information on the Health Food Center, go to: www.hfcshop.com.