Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, proudly brought to you by Crockett Septick
for this Thursday, September 25th, 2025.
Have your host James here, we're joined by our friends, family, really family natural
foods, steaming a Katrina hitter.
Good to see you both.
How you guys doing?
Great.
Hey, doing well.
Good, good to hear.
It's also good to see that you guys are calm and collected because you got a big, big
October ahead of you guys and it really a big part of it is the anniversary.
It is.
Absolutely.
A lot of preparations.
Katrina was up at like five in the morning in that work at 5.31 on these days.
I tried to do that today.
It didn't quite work.
We got there at 8.30.
You tried though.
That counts.
But he did try.
I think it there early.
Points, points for Steven.
You were up early but just with your daughter instead, right?
Yeah.
She takes president.
Absolutely.
You know, at that age, that's seven month olds, you know, they're trying to figure out
that sleep.
They really are.
It was James.
Yes.
Yes, everyone.
Some of us never grow out of it.
James is a big baby because he haven't like listened to this program before.
When it comes to the anniversary special, thank you, I like this.
Let's get this one moving.
One of the things that we love highlighting about this is not only the date itself and
certainly the great things that you guys do about it.
But what over the years, what are the community events become in such a fellowship and a
fun thing for people, along with, you know, maybe collecting up on supplies for the winter
or something like that?
For sure.
So save the date, everyone.
Like James is talking about, the anniversary sale is on October 3rd and 4th.
So Friday, that's going to be 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Saturday, that'll be 9 until 4.
And this is our 79th customer appreciation sale.
Yeah.
79 years.
That's a beautiful thing.
Yeah.
It's really fun.
It's, you know, it's a moment that we like to reflect and just give thanks and gratitude
to our community that has supported us through 79 years and three generations.
You know, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for our community.
So we really appreciate that.
But what we like to also highlight today as well as at the anniversary is the different
things that we're going to have going on.
So we can kind of talk about, like, what does that look like if you've never been there?
And who is going to be there?
What's on sale?
So you kind of have that idea and you can think about your list of, like, what you want,
you know, stacking up and such too.
Before diving into that, I thought about this the last time you all were in and didn't
have a chance to bring it up.
But one thing I wanted to ask, if you're, if you know or not, if anniversary spent, you
know, doing something like this is something that was done, you know, by your, your, your
dad and his dad and that, were they, did they do something like this too?
Yeah.
We asked our dad about this.
He definitely did it over the years.
Definitely.
He did it.
But I think he started it.
You know, it's kind of like one of these things, you get a, you have a new business and
you don't even really, like, think about anniversaries until it becomes, like, some amount
of time.
Yeah.
Five, ten years.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I think, I think my grandfather probably did stuff like that.
I remember some kind of, like, old news clipping that we had, like, saying, like, oh, we've
been in business this late.
I might have been, like, two months in business or something, you know, but he put it in
the papers, like, a little ad, like, come and stop in and say, hello, we've been in business,
you know, he was more than two months.
It was like a, you know, been around for two or five years or something like that.
Something like that, yeah.
I think our grandpa, so one thing about it is our dad actually said, the store's anniversary
is technically in spring, but because the store's original roots of the business started
as a feed and grain business, the busiest time for farmers was in spring when you're
planting and growing.
You have baby chicks, you have all the things going on.
Things spring and bounty full of starting things.
Which it still is.
We still saw a lot of green seeds and some of the stuff that our grandfather saw.
But they decided to do that in fall, have the anniversary sale, usually, you know, that
early October because it was after harvest, because the weather, you know, 70, 80 years
ago was much colder in early October than it is now.
But so that is something that was a little different.
And I think to Steven's point is our grandfather did, did do anniversary sales, but they were
maybe sporadic more.
Like it's our fifth or our tenth.
Yeah, maybe just doing like a big number once a year.
Yeah.
And where our dad really made it more of like this consistent every year, you know, really
like thanks to the community, you know, I want to give back, you give to me kind of the
concept.
And you know, that's what Steven and I saw growing up too.
So I can't speak as much to my grandpa's because I don't see as many of those too.
I ask because I just loving history and thinking about it, you know, interesting, but also, you
know, you do a great job of that thinking the community with this wonderful anniversary
sale and special that you guys do over the couple of days and we're going to hear more
details on.
But it's also in doing that, I think, a great way of honoring, you know, those that came
before you and that the history of this store and you're not only your dad, but your
gramps and those things by continuing to do this and by continuing to keep up that mission,
that message that really began with those guys and wanting to, you know, make this community
healthier, make it more certainly a place to go, you know, for people and so many things
that we love about family and natural foots.
Yeah, and I would say something that follows suit in all three generations.
So from Frank, Mike, Steven and Katrina, I think we've always, we always think that knowledge
is power and educating our community and that's something that all of us have done, you
know, staff as well, like really about putting your own health in your own hands and educating
yourself so you know, I think that's like, that's a great reminder.
Even today I was talking to this lady, she was looking for something for UTIs and she
said, like, oh, I've used over ERC before, which is an herb and I've used cranberry, everybody
knows cranberry.
And I said, oh, yeah, there's like an incompatibility between those two, like ones trying to create
more alkalinity, ones trying to create more acidity.
And I looked this up in a book just to kind of, you know, make sure I was remembering this
right.
And she's like, oh, that's so interesting.
I never learned that.
I never knew that before.
And thank you for sharing that.
And I was like, yeah, that's, you know, that's kind of what we do here is, you know, help
give people some guidance and share knowledge, you know, I was opening two or three different
books, whether just like trying to dig through, you know, trying to help her with, you know,
what she was working on.
And she's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to share this information with my mom too.
And, you know, it's, it's very heartwarming to see that.
And I think that's something that Katrina and I and our dad and I'm sure our grandfather
before that, it's always been about the community because our business win continue really
for many more days beyond where it is today.
If we didn't have customers coming in every day and appreciating what we're doing and
also appreciating what they're, you know, they're coming in with their, their support and
their questions.
Mm-hmm.
Doing something right to be able to celebrate 79 years.
Yeah.
Doing some really wild things right over there.
Yeah.
So, for Stephen and I, it would be our 11th anniversary and for the stores, the anniversary
is 79 years, which also 11 feels really wild and big too.
Yeah, well, I was going to say Saloo about that.
Thank you.
That's really good.
That's awesome.
I didn't realize it had been that long.
That's really cool, you too.
That's it.
You guys kept the ship afloat.
Yeah.
You didn't.
You know, you're doing it.
That's great.
That's awesome.
That means a lot.
And not to mention it, how I think that the, the, it is grown with the times.
It is grown with things and how you guys have even more so and nothing, just accessibility
and so many more businesses nowadays.
But look at how much of, when you go around store and family, natural foods, our Wisconsin
products, our local products, supporting local, helping local businesses out there.
That, I don't know that we could, we'd have enough time on our, either on our schedules
to get into all the depth of that and how many people have, I've never heard of this business
but I found them because you guys had their products in your store.
Yeah.
That's the definition of buying local, supporting local and everything and helping out
others.
It's something that I admire so much in family, natural foods and businesses like yours,
where it's not just, we want to be successful, it's, hey, we're going to lower the ladder,
we're going to make sure everybody is successful.
Yeah.
That, that goes a long way and over 70, for 79 years, do I know it is, it's wild and that's
really fun.
I want to highlight some of the vendors that are going to, or some of the companies we work
with that are going to be there and one in particular that's going to be there on Saturday.
So I'm going to, I'm going to highlight Friday's first, everyone, but I want to talk about
one on Saturday.
That is.
That's a tune until Friday.
Amazing.
And so great.
But okay, hold tight.
So we're going to talk about the sales.
So on Friday, October 3rd, we're going to have the 79th anniversary and it's going to
be highlighting products that are going to be on sale like the vitamins and the supplements,
cosmetic, essential oils, those kind of categories are all on sale.
So definitely make your list out and come and get, you know, sale items, sales on those.
We also, you can sign up for a raffle when you're, when you're checking out and you're buying
a gift, you're buying something, you get a free gift for coming in.
So that's also something we like to do and something our dad always did too.
And then we have lots of random samples.
And then there's like, if you want, like if your hands are a little dirty, we've got some
soap samples for you.
Yes.
They smell really good.
That's the way he wants.
They came in this box and I was like, what am I smelling?
The back of the room or the back of the store smells so good, like soap, it's like lemon
grass, I think.
That's awesome.
It's delicious.
Yeah.
So I think it's lemon grass and there was one other kind of flavor, I guess we call it.
Yeah.
And we'll have like supplement samples and a handful of others.
I think they're talking to Rishi T out of Milwaukee and they said they'd send us some samples
that we could hand out to customers too and they have some of the best tea really I've
ever had, you know, really anywhere in the world.
So yeah, they'll be some fun little samples in the past.
When we get enough samples, we might do this again.
There's been some issues over the last couple of years supply chains or whatever, where
we haven't had as much.
But there was a there was a stint probably three or four years, five years where we did
a wheelbarrow of samples.
So we just don't remember this is during around a couple of times with a big old canoe
paddle.
Like we're making.
What's that?
Oh, yeah.
What is that called?
Oh, here we're on air trying to pull that like that drink that you have ever had.
Everything in.
Is that what you're looking at?
Like soup that people.
Oh, like gumbo?
Yeah, like gumbo, but they make it in like the green beer.
Oh, the green beer.
Oh, it's.
Oh.
Oh, there's somebody yelling at it already.
I know.
I know.
There's a call in.
Yes.
Somebody would call in and tell us.
Yes.
Anyways, it's not it's not relevant that relevant anyways, but we'll have tons of samples.
If we get enough, we'll put in a wheelbarrow because that's a good time.
That's awesome.
It's super fun.
And then then we've got like some really cool folks coming to do some like education
and sampling at their store.
We have Tom Hack.
A lot of people have met him over the years.
So Terry naturally, he's worked with Terry naturally from day one and you know, we subsequently
we worked with him from day one.
And I just have a lot of respect and admiration for Tom and we have customers who come in.
They like, they kind of see him and they've talked to him before.
So they just like going to make a B line and I'm like, oh, hi.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I want to talk to Tom.
They want to talk to Tom.
People come in just to talk to him and he's here most years.
I don't know what his time frame is.
He's going to be in.
I guess we should.
He's usually more in the morning and he's usually gone by like one, I would say, at the
latest.
Yeah, he should get home to his kids, I guess.
But yeah, Tom's like any kind of questions you've got about Terry natural, he's been there
from the beginning.
He knows everything.
Most all of our staff know like a lot.
But if you've got a few extra questions, come in for that and Tom's also going to be
giving out samples.
He's got like a bunch of samples.
So like you could try stuff.
Some of it you can taste, really tasty samples that are also good for you, obviously.
And then we've got, who's Liz?
We're going to have Liz and she represents a couple different brands of ours like a new
like a TALO, like lotion company, but she's going to highlight Gaia, which is a really great
herb company.
It's certified organic.
They're out of North Carolina, so she'll be talking about that doing some sampling of
that.
I really, unique high quality, really high quality herbal products.
And we've been sold them for a few years now.
Like Katrina and I like look through the products and we're like, well, all these products
are really good.
There's no wrong.
There's all good choices with those ones.
Liz has worked with that company for a long time, so she can really, you know, talk, speak
to them as well or better than we can.
But Liz, Liz is like, she's been doing this at her store a couple of times.
I think she had like that.
Her energy is exception.
Yeah.
When you meet Liz, you'll just be like, oh, okay, this is fun.
She's the kind of person who wants to give you a hug and she doesn't even know you puts
a smile on you on your face and like, you just kind of like, she, I guess she brings
an energy that's really special and it's really fun to have her at her between her and
Tom.
You're noticing a theme here, everybody, yeah, all good stuff, right?
All good stuff.
We've kind of learned over the years, there's certain folks representing certain companies
that we really love to have come and we can't, they do it right.
We can't have all of them.
So there's always kind of like, we're kind of like in this battle, Katrina, it'll be like,
who do we have this year?
It's an exclusive list.
Yeah, but like, the great thing is like, maybe the next year they'll be, the others will
be there.
So it's great.
It sorts itself out.
Like, I really like how it stacked up this year and we tell, we tell, we talk about
Saturday.
Oh, no, wait until Saturday.
So also Liz is going to be kind of representing vital planet.
So we've had vital planet talk about a lot of digestible health, do presentations.
So Liz is going to be there and she can answer a lot of other questions specific to that
and that brand, but lots, all sorts of things, digestive health.
And then four elements.
So back to this like rooted, local, local roots of a lot of things here, which we love
that theme.
Four elements is out of Barabu, Wisconsin.
So an hour away, everyone.
Like an hour away.
It is a beautiful farm in the rolling hills of like the, you know, the Barabu hills.
Yeah.
And it's so, it's a great farm.
We've been there before ourselves.
We've known Jane the Herbalist that is running four elements, the owner.
As we were kids, like we see her at conferences and stuff, she won't be there, but a different
one of her staff associates will be there and she's wonderfully knowledgeable and they're
going to be doing different, like different samples of some of their cosmetic lines, some
of their teas that are so good, so perfect for this time of the year for like immune health
and such.
So she's going to be in.
Well, since they're made from herbs that Jane grows on her farm, she's a certified herbalist.
So she knows what she's doing with these.
She grows the herbs and then she makes the formulas all on her farm.
And it's such a cool thing and she's been doing it for so many years.
Like you've kind of hear about these stories now and then and you're like, that's cool
or like you look at their formulas and you're like, it's not that good of for her.
But like Jane, Jane's a pro and she knows what she's doing and her, all of her staff know
what they're doing.
It's going to be really cool to have them here at her store.
Absolutely.
Okay, I remember the soup name and it's so funny because I wanted to yell it in between
saying that.
Yeah.
Oh, of course, Julia.
That's the soup.
Oh, nicely done.
Points to Katrina.
You remember it too.
I remember it too.
Okay.
I did not remember.
I'm not going to lie.
I did not remember it.
But that's great.
Thank you so much.
Very yo.
Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Yeah.
It comes from some culture.
It's like a Scandinavian thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Yep.
Okay, so Saturday.
So Friday is packed and is awesome.
So you can come Friday.
You can decide to come back Saturday and often people do and it's wonderful.
A lot of people come pretty early.
We often, this is another thing we, I guess, we could tell people in the radio.
If you're listening, you're in on the secret.
We do a little giveaway for the first few customers who come in.
So if you come in at the door opening, that's like an advantage on Friday and sometimes
we'll do it on Saturday.
No guarantees, but probably.
And then the other thing that I would say is if you want to kind of hit the time, like
I said, it's always quite busy for the first hour.
Most of these sales reps kind of come like 10, 30, 11 and they stay until like one, maybe
two o'clock.
So I've come in that like 11 to one o'clock range and you'll probably be able to hit
all three of those on Friday.
Again, I should clarify times, you know, maybe check Facebook or give us a call if you
really want to figure out the timing of these specific people.
Just day-day.
Or just come and then come again.
That's what a lot of people, that's why we started doing Saturdays.
It was actually we started doing three days.
Our dad always did one day and I can see why because it's, it's a lot.
Then we moved it to two because we said yeah, three is a lot of work.
But two is nice because some people can't make it one day.
So we do it on two days and like what we actually realize is that a lot of people came
a second time, brought their cousins, they brought their sisters, they brought their brothers
ideally.
Yeah.
I would bring my brother.
Well, you'd bring your brother nice of you.
Yeah.
It's very nice.
Very well done.
But I hope everything.
Saturday, so that's going to be October 4th, you know, coming for the 79th anniversary
is fun for multiple different things.
So we have Keith and he is with Farm Allo and this is one of the only businesses that
we can say that has worked with all three generations of family, natural foods owners.
So he worked with our grandfather, Frank and our dad, selling Allo with his Allo company.
And then his first Allo company, he's had, now he's on his second Allo company and this
one is the best Allo company out there.
And then he worked with our dad and during our dad's era, he would come in and he would
bring these like cases of Allo that are not, they're at least 60 pounds if not more.
Yeah, it's a case of 12 of 32 ounce bottles.
Yeah.
He'd bring them in himself and he'd bring in like eight of them at, you know, here's one,
you know, here's another, here's two at a time and he was doing that in his 70s.
Well, y'all, he's 97 and he wants to come.
And he wants to sample his Allo because he loved it so much.
Sky's awesome.
He's obviously in good health.
He's 97 years old.
He's taken his Allo.
Products working.
We've been working with him for probably like probably 70 years, probably not the first
nine years, but like say exactly when we'll have to ask him when he's starting his first
company.
We'll get the full story.
Or are you coming to ask him, but yeah, Keith is kind of an inspiration.
He who started a company and stuck to it and he didn't try to like branch into all
these different things.
He just does Allo.
Yeah.
Like he even made a shampoo and conditioner because he, you know, he's like, oh, really,
you could just use the Allo juice in your hair.
Wow.
You know, I just take 100% or you know, whatever Allo juice and use it in your hair.
But he's like, you know, people kind of want it in us in a bottle and, you know, they
don't want to get it out of the refrigerator.
Sure.
Take a shower.
Right, right, right.
It's a shampoo and conditioner.
If you look at like the percentage of Allo, it's like 75% Allo or some, I think the exact
number is very high.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of products in the market say like contains Allo and it's like, what?
Like who knows?
One percent.
Yeah.
Like it's like a little sprinkle of it.
But he's so dedicated to Allo.
He's like, we're going to make as much Allo as possible in this product.
He does it right.
Yeah.
He's just a really cool guy to meet and to hear from.
His product sound as great as he does.
Yeah.
That's somebody we want to, you want to meet, we want to talk to.
Absolutely.
So yeah, he'll be there on Saturday and we may have one more guest on Saturday but
we're confirming those things up.
So either way, come on October 3rd and 4th for our 79th customer appreciation sale.
It's really happening from like 9 to 6 on Friday, 9 to 4 on Saturday.
There's sales, there's tastings of things, there's knowledge, there's friendship shared.
There's just a good time overall and definitely some, you know, sales to get and some gifts
and such.
It's a great time to stock up and it's a great time to spend it over at family natural
foods.
Well said and thank you so much for the breakdown of all that and it was a really nice job
by both of you.
That said, there's so much left.
We touched a tip of the iceberg on this and the fun that these two days are and everything.
Mark, come on to your calendar, everybody.
Make plans to head on over there multiple times because there's multiple things going
on.
There are no reruns over those two days.
The other thing I should circle back on to just for one second is like we do all these
gift baskets and we get a lot of them.
People always come in when we call them and they say we say they won, they're like I never
win anything and we love the fact that we have like sometimes like over 50 gifts that
we're giving out, sometimes like closer to 75.
So we're calling 75 people after this event.
Sometimes takes a couple days as you can imagine.
And we say like hey you won something and they're like what I never win.
So come in, you know sign up for some door prizes.
You got a good chance of winning.
There's a lot of great prizes.
They're still coming in, there's boxes of them today.
And you know also like get a free gift with each purchase.
We've got some really special ones this year.
We kind of splurge a little bit on them this year.
Yeah, we did.
That's true.
So yeah, free gift with each purchase, free samples, we'll have somebody probably an
attempt out front just welcoming folks.
It's going to be fun time.
Yeah, it is October 3rd and 4th over at Family Natural Food to give you more details before
you wrap up with the team.
Yeah, last little thing I want to just highlight because I don't know if we'll be on air
before that is that well-built presentation we're going to have.
It's a hair skin nail supplement.
It's going to be done by Lori.
She is a local half of the year and she's super passionate about all things hair skin
and nails, which really is, you know, a group like that's a lot of people can get a lot
of health from.
Which everybody's got.
Oh, yeah.
One of those three.
Yeah.
Hopefully, hopefully.
Yes.
So that's something that's worth, Mark and your calendar.
It's October 8th at 515.
It's a well-built presentation at Family Natural Foods.
Come and learn.
Come meet Lori.
She's fantastic.
And again, another owner of her company, another passionate person who, you know, has
talked to her customers and knows the results that are possible with this product.
Yeah.
We've, Katrina, I've talked to Lori more than once and we're just really, really touched
by like her passion in the product.
And the fact that she lives local and she's like, yeah, I come talk to customers and consumers.
And so we're going to open it up and everyone can bring their questions and, you know, learn
about the product.
We've known for many of our, not only listeners out there, but even guests that I've had
for other things that have nothing to do with you guys coming in and talking about
being at a presentation or oftentimes when I, somebody I guess knows you guys are coming
in and they mentioned something about the store or one of these presentations.
And they come back to, yes, the great products and the great service because, I mean, another
thing that we didn't touch on nearly enough, all these amazing employees that have worked
there all these 79 years.
Oh my gosh.
That's like each one gets their own episode.
Absolutely.
And deeply appreciate all of them.
But you mentioned knowledge and that's such a cool part of this that I don't know that
I thought that much about.
But I know that our guests have and I know that community people that I've talked to.
Including my own mother have talked about this quite a bit about the things that she
learned.
And boy, there are many things that Pamela flows more than knowledge and learning stuff.
Right.
And you're your mom and dad or the story.
She's going to work in a library.
Yeah.
Right.
She loves that.
She loves somebody liking knowledge and working in a library.
It's what I think.
Yeah.
It really speaks to that.
It speaks to, you know, the impact that this store makes in what it does and why we're
so happy to be celebrating 79.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're definitely excited about it.
So everybody, come on out one more last time.
We're going to mention it.
October 3rd and 4th for our 79th customer appreciation sale.
Join us.
Always great hanging out with you guys and talking with you.
Thank you so much for the time.
We'll be highlighting those presentations in the sale itself on our morning shows and
other places and everything and making sure we get a good turnout.
Not that you need us to be honest.
I mean, we know the turnout is going to happen either way, but we'll try to help.
We'll try to add on it.
Add on to those numbers.
We appreciate it.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'll meet you down there, everybody.
I'll be down there.
At least one of those days.
So I will see you down there.
See you, too, there.
Thanks for the time, you guys.
Thank you.
And a big thank you to all of you for joining us for another edition of WFHR.
So rapids report.
