Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this November 21st, 2023.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
At 330, we're going to welcome in our friend, Amy Flunno,
211 Director with the United Way of Southwood and Adams Counties.
Right now, two of our favorite people to talk to,
Steven and Katrina Hittner from Family Natural Foods.
Good afternoon, you too.
Hello.
Hello, hello.
How is everybody doing?
Hey, good.
Good.
Good.
Yeah, it's a good day.
Sun's shining, feeling good.
How is your body schedules with the time change in everything?
Guys, adapting okay, and you're working all right?
Yes, they're jet lags.
Right up, right.
Get to more of that a little bit later.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a tease in the industry, we call it.
That's what it is.
We'll talk about our jet lag, things to help with it,
and things we learned.
That's your tease.
Looking forward to it.
But of course, this week, in just a couple of days,
we've got Thanksgiving, and you guys know how to celebrate
Thanksgiving over there.
Yeah, I mean, we like...
I like to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Oh, yes.
The store knows how to prepare in celebration
for Thanksgiving.
Could be a nice shakuri board.
Yeah, that's true.
You know, as everyone's gathering, coming in the door,
it could be...
Almost good cheeses and dry fruits and nuts.
It could be like coming up with a nice beverage for people,
one that could be non-alcoholic, as well as alcoholic
with local shrubs, which is a sipping vinegar made
from local ingredients by a local producer.
My favorite is the basil.
The basil is pretty awesome.
They're all good.
There's a cherry and basil, but...
That would really set a nice tone for Thanksgiving
dinner, right, Ted?
So, are you bringing that to Thanksgiving?
I thought you were.
Oh, okay.
Guys, we're going to have to figure this one out,
but either way, it's going to be there.
I'll bring it.
I mean, you are the, you know, the other son.
I'm trying really hard to be.
Yes, yes, and this will give me points.
This will give...
You know what will happen is all three of us will bring it.
Yes, that's what's going to happen.
That's definitely what's going to happen.
Yeah, there's...
And then there is a big part of Thanksgiving.
A lot of people, not everybody, but they have a turkey
or they use a turkey breast or something like that.
Well, it's your lucky day because we happen to have
two or three extra turkey breasts.
So if it's a smaller gathering and you're like,
I just need something.
That can feed a few people.
That's great.
I think one of those turkey breasts probably can feed
about four people.
Five people, they're pretty big.
Or a couple people with some leftovers.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And then we have this orphan turkey.
We have an orphan turkey.
Oh, no.
Yes.
Oh, poor orphan turkey.
Poor orphan turkey.
Poor orphan turkey.
It wants a home.
Yeah.
We got a couple days.
If anybody wants a really nice turkey,
it's pasture raised.
There's no hormones, no antibiotics in it.
It is tasty.
It's great.
Every time that people sign up for our turkeys,
they sign up again next year and the following year
and the following year because of that.
This year we just called them from the list we had last year
and they're like, oh, thanks for calling me.
Yeah.
I was just thinking about that.
Yes, sign me up.
I don't think you had too many calls,
you know, like people I picked up their phone
where they were like, no.
No, everybody was like, yeah.
I was like, so glad you called me ahead.
I was just thinking about it.
So I don't think we get hardly any better return on.
I mean, we have a lot of great customers
returning for a lot of great things.
Don't get me wrong.
But I think turkeys are up on the top,
and it's kind of funny.
And if I can do it because you guys won't do this,
if I could take a second,
businesses don't do this.
You guys, you called them.
Oh, God, you'd be called James.
Well, you know, I mean, in the sense of like,
hey, we got these turkeys, you could easily just throw that out there
and anybody who wants them come to us.
Right.
You went to them.
Katrina's a pretty amazing telemarketer.
That's awesome.
I think that's really cool.
I didn't know it was going to fill us up today.
This is one more thing that we could add to your resume.
It's more like, she like answering her phone.
That's pretty cool.
You guys did that.
I usually answer her calls too.
I mean, she's.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's good.
Does she love having radio with siblings?
Yeah, it is.
Just a little banter back and forth.
I love it.
I can't get enough of it.
It's part of the reason we love talking to you guys.
Um, other things.
So just to highlight for Thanksgiving,
we have amazing organic local cranberries
that our friends, um,
the Roosh family has been doing it.
Century farm.
So it's literally been around four centuries.
His father did it and he's doing it.
And they're this beautiful small marsh in the Vesper area.
Yeah.
We've gone there.
We've seen it.
We've known the family really well since we were kids.
Organic cranberries.
Yeah.
It's not an easy thing to find.
And these are really fresh.
They harvest them just to be fresh berries.
So they're, they're harvested right.
They keep really well.
You can do a lot of stuff with them.
Similarly, if you want dried cranberries,
we have, we have sweetened dried cranberries
that are locally produced.
And of course, every cranberry we have is locally produced.
Yeah.
And then we have honestly cranberries,
which are wonderful.
Very rare to find unsweetened dried cranberries.
And this is what I bring as a gift.
I mean, we'll get to where we are traveling.
But I took these halfway or totally around the world actually.
And I was giving these away to the folks on our journeys.
So these are nice.
If you want to, if you get some relatives coming in from out of town
and you want to send them home with something,
a little taste of Central Wisconsin,
something without any sugar,
the true tart taste of cornice.
You're just going, Mary's, Mary's a token of pain right there.
Mary's got me set up on this.
Absolutely.
So yeah, there's and lots of other fun
local flavors like, you know, parsnips.
And just like some of those things that you kind of expect to have there
or you want a unique flavor and variety for your Thanksgiving,
it's all fresh and more.
Or like, I mean, when you mention parsnips,
because a lot of people are like, what are parsnips?
That might be a good reminder that if you're looking at a recipe right now
or what we get a lot of this time, you know, right now,
is people coming in saying, oh, I've got this relative coming in who's vegan.
They're gluten-free.
They're gluten-free.
What do I do?
They don't eat this.
They don't eat that.
We've all got a couple relatives like that.
And if you want to, if you want some help kind of accommodating that
and like, giving some guidance,
we're pretty good at that.
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of your wheelhouse.
Yeah, we're good at that.
Kind of what we do.
Yeah, we're creative enough to be like, what about this flavor?
And we've really stocked up on a lot of those things.
Like, pie crusts are hard to make to begin with.
You want to try to make it a gluten-free pie crust?
I mean, good luck.
I think my wife's done it pretty successfully, but...
But she's amazing.
That's what she puts in effort into it.
And she's going to do it.
She generally eats gluten-free or we both do for that matter.
So she's going to do it more than just, you know,
for Thanksgiving when people are visiting.
But really, we have these gluten-free pie crusts that are really great.
We sell tons of them.
And they, you know, they just make it easy.
You just pull whatever you want in it.
Savory, sweet, you're ready to go.
And I think you guys bring up a great point
about reaching out about those things.
You know, I know that there's nowadays everything's a search engine away.
But you're never going to get the kind of details
and the really, the logistics of things
unless you're talking to real people.
And there's nobody better to talk to than a team over family and natural foods
when it comes to this stuff.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, we're all, we all have our own little skill
sets and flavors and so on that we like to, to share.
Another favorite is Vampas, oils and vinegars.
So maybe you're thinking about giving this as a gift
to whomever's house you're going to.
Yeah, good job.
Very easy to carry.
Yeah.
With a small size, probably to get on plane, even.
That's true.
Yeah.
Or maybe you want to top your Brussels sprouts
with a little extra, like, date balsamic or something really fun.
There's all sorts of different options with that one.
And we have what about 20 different vinegars and oil come.
Yeah, probably a little more than 20, but yeah.
So we'd like to say come in for the experience and come try them.
Whether it's to give as a gift or it's to, you know,
use as your Thanksgiving meal.
And now can we, can we segue, can we do this
into a small business Saturday?
Perfect.
Nicely done.
The reason why I want to segue into small business Saturday
is that we don't often do a sale for Vampas, oils and vinegars.
But we are going to, of course, small business Saturday.
But we're going to start it today.
Yeah, probably more like noon because we haven't set the sale up everybody.
Insider, insider info right here.
I love it.
I love this.
Well, the good thing is nobody's going to know this until
yeah, three, three, three, three, three, three, three, three.
That's right.
Yeah, so you're in the car driving over.
We should have it all set up.
Yes, nice, nice.
It'll work out just like we planned it.
Yes, just like we planned it, everybody.
So the oils and the Vampas, oils and vinegars,
if you haven't come in for the experience, come try them.
We have yummy flavors like
garlic olive oil,
date balsamic, honey vinegar.
Let's see raspberry vinegar at
truffle oil.
I mean, if those aren't making you water already,
you've got to come and try the other ones I didn't even mention.
Yeah, yeah.
And that raspberry is really good.
Yeah, that's really good.
Raspberry balsamic is great.
So good.
And what's fun too is if you've got your cousin visiting
or your sister is in from out of town
or maybe she lives right next door to you
or maybe in your basement, I don't know.
Either way, take her along with you to the store.
And you can try these together.
It's actually, we have the most fun
when people do this together.
Yeah.
Like it's really nice that it's an experience.
You can do it by yourself.
And a lot of people, that's fun too.
Don't get me wrong.
But if you've got the chance,
it's kind of fun to try and compare notes.
And it's just like you end up being like,
oh, you come up with recipes together
when you're standing there.
You get ideas.
It's just sort of fun.
So the great thing about these balsamic oils
and vinegars is basically you never leave
with one that you don't like
because you've tasted them beforehand.
I mean, how many times can you say that
I think you have the grocery store, right?
Buying something new that you never bought before.
And you're like, well, this looks good.
You're taking a chance.
Yeah, you're taking a chance with those.
Yeah, not in this case.
You're getting exactly what you like
and what you already tasted and know you want.
And there's a bunch like Katrina said for gifts.
So you're thinking ahead, right?
So a small business Saturday.
Maybe you're that really prepared person,
you know, because we're going to talk on the air
about the, here's some gift ideas
and here's the last minute gift ideas.
But maybe you're that very prepared person
and you're like, awesome.
It's on sale on, you know, small business Saturday
or I guess today and tell small business Saturday.
And I know I want some because I love it at my house,
but I want to also give it as a gift.
This is a great time to get it as a gift.
Yeah, there you go.
And to give it as a gift.
And if you're going to use it as a recipe
and then like, then you're like, hey,
you'd like that.
Those Brussels sprouts that you never usually like, right?
Yeah.
You want the secret ingredient.
Yep.
Here you go.
Here's your Christmas gift.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, that's great.
Yeah, she's working as marketing right there.
She's working it.
Very nicely done.
I love that.
That's a great idea.
Other things we're going to have on sale for small business
Saturday.
It probably Friday Saturday.
We'll be doing this one is now foods essential oils.
And the bonfire and the pranorum essential oil.
Pranorum essential oils.
So basically all of our essential oils will be on sale Friday
Saturday.
And that includes like, there's little kits that are really
great gift ideas because they have maybe maybe four sets
or four different kinds in there.
Like, let's say, for example, a peppermint, a lavender,
a eucalyptus, and a blend.
A blend, maybe.
And it's really nice because sometimes you don't know what
to get for somebody.
Yeah.
It's a great way to hear it's already packaged.
And it looks nice.
So those kits will be on sale as well as the bonfoss,
or sorry, the now foods, and the pranorum essential
oils will be on sale.
Another thing that if you are thinking of doing this
and you're uncertain of what kind of fragrance
or what you're having to get and everything,
another chance to ask the gang of family natural foods
are probably going to, well, the person I get this for,
they have trouble sleeping or something like that.
They can help you find the right oil for them.
Yeah, we have that.
But same as bonfoss oils and vinegars,
you get to smell it at a time.
The bonfoss oils, you get to taste it.
This one, you get to smell it at a time.
So you know what you're getting by the smell.
But we're happy to help if, right?
Like, you have something that's like, well,
what would I use for sleeping?
We love helping and putting those combinations
together.
And then I just want to mention the chamber.
We're part of the chamber.
And there's a really fun, small business Saturday,
local holiday season.
Like, I think there's three days that you can
stop into these businesses.
And you can essentially like, we stamp it and just say
that you were there.
And then you get to put your, you send this or drop this off
with your name on it to the chamber.
And they will draw your name with a gift certificate
chance to win a gift certificate from all these awesome
businesses that are on here.
And there's probably like, just looking at it,
probably 20, 30 different businesses that definitely worth
stopping into and checking out.
Yeah, all local businesses.
Kind of a fun way just to explore the city.
Because there's probably a few on there that I would have
not thought of or I would have been like, oh, yeah.
That guy's over there.
Yeah, it's a great.
I love this road map, actually, just to keep it in my,
like, whether I get it done in time or not,
I'm like, I'm just going to shop with them this season
because they're supporting local, they're here,
they're working, they're doing all the right things.
So definitely check that out.
If you don't have a copy, we have copies at the store.
And enjoy a small business Saturday and all
that the local shops have to offer.
Yeah, passports are available at participating businesses
on November 25th or at the Heart of Wisconsin Chamber
of Commerce beginning, they're already there right now.
You can pick them up there.
As Katrina said, you can get them over family and
extra foods as well.
We got the sheets there.
You can use this as a passport, fill out as many of those.
Grand prize baskets consist of items donated by each business
represented on the passport.
So you're going to get some good prizes for doing this as well.
And overall, the main reason, prizes are great.
All these other things are wonderful.
Buy local support local.
That is the essence of what we are here, not only our station,
but what we are as a community.
Absolutely.
So you just mentioned passports.
You set me up pretty well.
I thought it was, I didn't want to make it,
but it's right there.
It's right there.
Yeah.
Right passports you have for doing this awesome event
from the 25th to the 28th for the small shop local.
But passports, Stephen and I got a chance
to use our passports the other day.
And we got to travel across the country.
We're still wondering what across the world, I'm sorry.
We're still wondering kind of what time zone we're in.
But I'm pretty good now.
You have Stephen that question.
It might be a little different.
But we had a really awesome opportunity
that actually was presented to us in 2020.
Terry Lemuron with Terry Natural.
He gave everybody an opportunity.
We had to qualify to get into this big pool
of ex-immoner retailers and whoever,
I don't know how they did it.
Did they choose with a hat?
Like, out of a hat, I don't know how.
I could imagine Terry just drawing names out of a hat.
I have no idea.
Not only how it happened, I had to be randomized.
It was very random, but they're weird.
Well, also, I was like, you know, I don't know,
somehow we won, so.
We won, so we were, we were feel really fortunate,
honored blessed all of those, all of those feelings,
that we were one of 10 different businesses
in the United States that got to go travel
with Terry Lemuron.
That's cool right there, okay?
But we got to travel to India with him.
My goodness.
I know, it was amazing.
And so we are going to share a little bit about it now,
but we want to let everyone know
that we're going to have a presentation
where we're going to talk about our travels
and what we learned from our trip, right?
Because if you're with Terry,
you're learning something about an awesome product,
about a supplement, and about the world.
Yeah, and this was to see where like the turmeric
that he sells so much of these, you know,
one awards with, he's changed people's lives.
He's, you know, reduced or eliminated pain for people.
That turmeric grows in India, and we saw exactly where it grows.
We saw the place where it's manufactured, where it's processed,
and the people behind the research in it,
and it's big research, and they're doing really cool things.
So that's the reason we were there.
I mean, to travel with Terry was like a bonus.
That was like the fun part, and we were like a trinous
that we were learning tons from him.
I remember at one point we were walking towards these
to Merrick Fields, and the host,
the host that was there with us, the folks from India.
They were walking along, and they just kind of were pointing out plants,
or we were asking about plants, like, what's this thing?
What's that growing in that field?
And they're like, oh, that's curry leaves.
And that's like, that's bananas over there.
That's Okra, and like, you know, everything that grows there
that doesn't really grow here.
I mean, it's fairly a little overlap.
And then they started talking about like,
oh, we're doing research on this product.
This is like really promising for blood pressure health,
or this or that.
And then you could hear them talking with Terry about it.
Like, Terry, in another year from now, just wait.
We're gonna have a product out about this one,
but we're in the middle of research and development right now.
It felt like you were walking through like a shopping mall,
with anybody else, where you're like, oh, yeah.
Like, I'm interested in buying that,
or I'm interested in getting this.
Or like, this is really good.
Terry's shopping experience, which is out in a field,
with nature, or looking at herbs.
Looking at herbs, you guys are so cool.
Yeah, that sort of epitomized the trip to me.
I mean, there's so many other levels to it,
but yeah, it's just something else.
So my first question, have you guys stopped smiling
since you got off the plane?
Have you just seemed so happy?
So you enjoyed the experience so much.
It is really cool to hear very much looking forward
to the presentation you guys are gonna do,
and I look forward to the details on that.
You know, one of the things that occurs to me
when you're talking about this,
and I thought about this with Terry before as well,
and I think when we've talked to Terry
on the air before some years ago,
we all in life tend to,
we'll listen to almost anybody,
and talk to almost anybody about most subjects,
but if somebody knows what they're talking about,
if they've experienced it, if they've been through
the grind of it or what have you,
we tend to listen a little bit more and take their,
okay, well, this is an actual mom,
I'm gonna listen to her with mom advice.
So she knows what she's talking about.
Yeah.
To actually go over there and see some of this stuff,
the products that you are selling,
the products that you are representing
through Terry and everything,
I think that goes a little bit farther,
especially in a day and age where people are,
they wanna be sure about what they're taking,
they wanna be sure about what the products that they're buying.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Yeah, there's an herb that we learned about where they said,
we just got a bunch of research back on this,
and this herb, so you have to come to the presentation.
We're gonna be like, that's well.
Now I'm good at this.
But they said, this herb, they're like,
we basically guarantee you'll increase testosterone levels
for men, like over, like 15 plus percent,
which is a lot for a natural plant.
And just to indicate like how this natural plant is so balanced
and so like amazing, really, for men,
it increased at an average of 15%.
For women, no increase in testosterone.
Oh, so I can't get those massive muscles I've been wanting.
Yeah, she's the worst one.
I mean, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
For women that come to the presentation,
we'll talk about all their benefits of the same plant has.
But it's a great example of a plant that can kind of,
you know, do one thing for one person
and do one thing for another person in this case.
And I thought that was amazing.
And they're confident on the,
and like, yeah, so you'll see this amount of results
in like in this case testosterone levels,
which is something you can test pretty easily.
I was like, that's cool.
They were, they were very excited and very confident on this.
This is a relatively new product and herb
that we've started carrying from Terry.
But there's, I mean, there was like a half a dozen things
that we learned about and we,
some of these were sold for years
and we know a lot about these, these products already.
We just learned even more and we like went to where they're from.
Like we know their life story now.
We literally know from root to bottle now.
And we know the people that Terry is an amazing company.
We've already known that before.
He's very much about helping people and quality.
And he's a very genuine person.
But this company he works with in India,
they are just the same, but in different strengths.
So they're very much, you know, all about the research
and all about making sure that you're getting
the best quality and Terry does that too.
You know, that's why he buys from them because he wants that.
And they're the people that are growing it.
They're just amazing individuals
that are very focused on the health, the research
and the quality of the plant.
So you guys are great at what you do.
You all you got to do is listen to the last 20 minutes
to understand that and especially selling the products,
making sure that people understand the products
that they are getting.
Do you feel after this experience
that you even understand it on a whole other level now
when it comes to mentally understanding these products,
but selling them?
Yeah, I think just having a relationship,
like we actually have the company that Terry is working with
has been like, what do you want to see?
We're like, why are you asking us?
We're not even like, we're not even like,
we're not even like, we're not even like putting,
we're not going to put a product out.
Like you all are doing, like, you know,
you're talking to Terry who then puts out thousands of products.
But we, you know, they like really were genuine
and they wanted to hear our perspective.
By the end of the trip, like one of the founders of this company
invited us over to his house.
Yeah.
And we might even talk about how he invited us to like a wedding.
Oh wow.
You never know what happens when you travel.
Yeah, yeah.
So going to India and then going to an Indian wedding,
not people we knew, but just kind of wedding crashing.
Yeah, essentially.
Basically.
But, you know, with a little bit of an invite.
Well, you know, like, this is some pretty fun experiences.
So we'll have some pictures.
Well, it'll be kind of like a combination
of just like a travelogue conversation.
Yeah.
People can ask a lot of questions.
And then we'll talk about like how some of these plants
are amazing and how we learned about where they come from
and some of these unique characteristics that you wouldn't
really learn just reading a book.
Yeah.
And that's what we really appreciated being
able to go on this trip traveling around
with an 86-year-old Terry Lemmer.
Yeah, yeah.
It was still cool.
Still as confident on travels as anybody.
Yeah.
And he travels a ton.
I got to travel back with him.
Oh, wow.
Just to that was even more fun too.
Oh, amazing.
So low time with Terry was great.
Yeah, you guys on the same flight is pretty cool.
It's very, very cool.
So about the presentation, it's going
to be all those products that we're going to highlight
are going to be on sale to that night.
So that's another incentive to one com learned about,
like Steven said, the travel log and about these lovely herbs
that we now have a deeper relationship with.
But it's going to be on Tuesday, this coming Tuesday,
and it's going to be at 5.15.
So that's Tuesday.
What is it?
The time now, guys, see a look at the time zone.
The 28th.
Yeah, 28th.
Tuesday, the 28th at 5.15 at family natural foods
in the back of the warehouse.
Come learn with us.
It's going to be so fun.
Yeah.
We're excited to share.
And you know, you get to hear Steven and I
be brother, sister back and forth.
Like we do here at the radio.
We do that with their presentations too.
Looking forward to that.
The details and the things that you guys
are going to be able to share during that is something
for everybody to check out.
You don't get to run into that every day.
So that's going to be worth checking out.
And certainly worth checking out things
over family and natural foods.
We all know we're getting ready for holidays this week.
And of course, Christmas and Hanukkah and all these other great ones
coming up.
When you're looking for items to get for your loved ones,
there's not many better places than family natural foods.
Courage to check that out.
You can visit them.
They are open right now over at 910 West Grand Avenue
in Wisconsin Rapids.
Give them a call anytime.
It's 715-423-3120.
That's 423-3120.
Be sure to bookmark their web page familynatrafood.com
and follow them on social media.
If you don't have an Instagram account,
create one just to be able to follow them.
It's worth it.
Trust me.
Thank you both so much.
Appreciate you.
Thank you.
We have a great Thanksgiving event.
Yes, you too.
We'll take a quick break.
And we'll come back with our friends from the United Way
on Monday magazine here on WFHR, locally grown radio.
