Natural ingredient and therapeutic skin care lines, especially brands with moderate price points and attractive packaging, are selling extremely well in chain drug stores.

The first four feet of PayLess’s new skin care planogram are devoted to natural products and boutique lines, like Revlon’s New Age Naturals, Freeman’s Aloe Vera and Beautiful, Cabot’s Natural Skin Care, St. Ives Skin Care, Sleepy Hollow and Mill Creek.

“We rolled it out the first quarter,” says Hope Stone, HBA buyer for the Oregon-based chain, “and we based it on the success of Naturistics. Customers want natural products, and are willing and able to buy them. The key is in the price point.When Revlon cut its prices for New Age Naturals in half, the movement improved substantially. At $4.99, New Age is doing very well for us.

“Freeman’s new items are blowing off the shelf. At $3 and change, people can’t get enough of Beautiful.

“St. Ives is another line that does very well. The 14-ounce pumps in their Botanicals line move very fast. We had a hard job these past few months keeping them and Freeman in stock,” Stone says.

She adds that movement on Pond’s new items has doubled in recent months. Movement of Jergen’s hand and body lotions has also risen dramatically since the new packaging came out, and therapeutic lines like Lubriderm and Eucerin are moving well.

Innovative items growing

High-tech products are also starting to grow. Stone says that Pond’s led with its Science Update promotions featuring Joan Lunden. Jergen’s is also supporting its position in a big way.
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In some parts of the country, especially the Sunbelt, the Banana Boat skin care line is catching on with consumers. One buyer notes that the natural ingredients like aloe vera, Vitamin E and Vitamin A appeal to consumers, and the clear, transparent bottles really make the product “pop out” on the shelf.

In Minneapolis, Snyder Drug’s HBA buyer Paul Carlson likes the new “store brands” that CPI, a major private label manufacturer, is introducing. “They have four or five different boutique lines that you could work with,” he says. “It’s very interesting and down the line, we may do something with that.”

At New York’s Genovese Drug, where skin care products are now merchandised by family in a skin care center, cosmetics buyer Stephanie Hayter says that Revlon and Almay skin care have been doing well, as have smaller specialty lines like West Cabot Clear Perfection, Sudden Change and private label Vitamin E oils.

Formula 405, Plenitude Eye Defense and Wrinkle Cream, single pacquette facial masks from West Cabot and Ardell have also been selling very well. The single pacquette units are just blowing out the doors, says Hayter.

At Thrifty Drug in Los Angeles, HBA buyer Mike Espy says Keri, Lubriderm, St. Ives, Neutrogena, Pond’s, Jergens and Beautiful skin care lines are all doing extremely well in his stores.

Espy says that a line like Beautiful gives Thrifty a chance to “boutique” its HBA department, but he says he needs just a bit more space than he has right now to do it to full effect.

In the specialty segment of skin care, Espy says his sales of CCA’s Sudden Change and West Cabot’s specialty items have also been very strong. “The whole idea of knocking off department store specialty items and selling them in drug stores at reasonable prices is working,” he says.

“Some people think the drug store shopper and the department store shopper are two different people, but I don’t agree with that. I think customers shop both types of stores, so it makes sense to carry specialty items in our presentations.”

Beiersdorf is expanding into some specialty lotions that use advance technology with Nivea Visage. Espy says that Beiersdorf, a German company, “finds what’s doing well in Europe and imports it here.” L’Oreal, a French company, does the same thing of course, most dramatically with Plenitude.

Espy also recently tried a new therapeutic item from Neoteric Cosmetics, a division of Scott’s Liquid Gold. It’s called Alpha Hydrox and it’s a cream and lotion that locks moisture into the skin. “It comes in a bright red container and they’ve done terrific advertising in the Los Angeles market. We feature it in a 24-price floorstand. It’s just done real[ly] well for us.”

More space allocated

Now that many manufacturers with strong moisturizing brands like Oil of Olay, Pond’s, Lubriderm and Plenitude have extended their lines into cleansing products, many drug chains are giving this category more space in their skin care planograms.

Espy says that while sales of the cleansers are not as strong as sales for the moisturizers, in almost all cases these new items do seem to be capturing incremental sales.

With bath care emerging this year as the next big “opportunity wave” for chain drug stores, buyers in just about every major chain are wrestling with the question of how to present bath care.

Distinctions between the bath and skin care categories are blurring. The recent explosion in skin care sales has encouraged most skin care manufacturers to expand into the cleansing and bath categories, and more new players are jumping into these categories every day.

Now buyers are trying to figure out how to best merchandise the bath care category. Should they: * create a specialty bath and body section with all the lines merchandised together as a family; * display the broadest family lines by themselves in a mini-boutique on an endcap or a floor fixture; * merchandise bath care as a segment within the traditional HBA aisle; or * merchandise bath as part of a cosmetics or gift department specialty set?

At PayLess in Oregon, Sheri Ralston, bath buyer for the cosmetics department, says this category has emerged as one of the strongest growth opportunities of the ’90s. However, she adds that it has also “challenged” PayLess to come up with a plan that maximizes its potential while minimizing the risk it takes to develop this potential.

“We want to create a boutique environment. But it costs money to do it right. It’s difficult to decide whether we should use vendors’ fixtures or come up with some of our own to give us a unique presentation. It’s an expensive option since we have so many stores. We have to determine if there is enough growth to justify that much of an investment.”

Ralston currently merchandises “cosmetic” bath care products in a 12-to 16-feet valley organized into three segments: children’s bath, self-use items, and gift and trendy items. “You need a presentation of each of these to cover a broad spectrum of that category,” she says. “Plus, it helps us create a presentation that is appealing and affordable.”

New boutique presentation

In New Orleans, K&B has expanded its bath and body in-line sections to four to eight feet, depending on the size of the store. HBA buyer Chuck Gautreaux and cosmetics buyer Donna McManus have also created a new boutique presentation for bath and body lines: two back-to-back wooden hutches that the chain merchandises as the “K&B Boutique” department.

This gives the chain a permanent off-shelf home for Karen Carsons, Naturistics, Windham and Vuarnet’s new bath and body line.

Gautreaux and McManus select lines for the set on the basis of their upscale packaging, quality formulas, price points and overall “class image.”

Michigan-based F&M Distributors now dedicates from 50 to 64 feet to skin and bath care products.

“We like the skin and bath care categories,” says cosmetic director Pat Gardocki. “Our primary focus is on beauty. More than half the space in our stores is devoted to beauty care products, so we want to do whatever we can to build a beauty image for our stores.”

Detroit-based Perry has tested Naturistics and Sarah Michaels on endcaps in several stores, and VP of Merchandising Steve Lund says he likes both lines.

Lund says that for the time being, the chain will continue to use endcaps to merchandise bath and body. “We don’t like to tie an endcap up permanently, but it’s a compromise. We’ll use them so we can be in the category, and when we develop a new in-line program, we’ll switch to that.”

Austin Drug, which caters to a carriage trade in the metro New York market, has had a 16-foot cosmetics bath care center since 1989.

The chain created its own fixture by taking the doors off what used to be locked fragrance cases and converting the fragrance bar into a bath department with open shelves.

Cosmetics buyer Janice Jacobs says the chain tends to merchandise “everything related to bath” in the center: potpourri, bath gels, candles, specialty soaps. “We haven’t put mass brands in the center,” says Jacobs, “because the emphasis is on department store types of products at a value. We also change the selection constantly, so we’re not trying to give any brand a home. We’re simply exposing our customers to the types of products they can use to accessorize their bath. We want to give them variety, because we want them to come back and shop us for whatever is new and fashionable.”

Ohio-based Drug Emporium had been merchandising bath care on the other side of its Skin Care Center. The center is a valley with its own signage that is usually located in the opening aisles of the store’s cosmetics department.

The new prototype, which is being tested now in one store, has separate fixtures dedicated just to bath,

Kathy Covault, merchandise manager for cosmetics and fashion merchandise for Drug Emporium, basically uses the center to showcase the premium lines like Jean Nate, Vitabath, Cosmyl, Aromatherapy, and English Water Lily from Parfums Parquet.

Kira Hansen has an obsession with chocolate, which is why the party menu for her 14th birthday included chocolate delights from fondue to chocolate-scented body lotion.

“It’s like my favorite dessert,” said Kira, who included “death by chocolate” moisturizer in the swag bags guests took home.

Kira and her mother, Karen, found the customized fragrance at Lotions & Potions, 5648 Broad St., in Greendale.

Consumers with a passion for specific scents no longer have to take what the manufacturer dishes out.

Stores such as Lotions & Potions, the Aveda store and The Body Shop, both in Mayfair Mall, allow customers to pick and choose how they want their personal products to smell.
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Essential oils, manmade fragrances and designer duplications can be dropped into shampoos, body scrubs, bath gels and moisturizers.

At the Aveda store, some customers want to replicate the way their hair and skin smells when they step out of the spa.

For that, Alita Geralts can blend 25 oils to provide the Aveda Signature Shampure smell. But sometimes, people want to blend everything. Together.

“A lot of times I’m really surprised by what they pick,” Geralts said.

In the front of the store is the mixing counter with small bottles of the oils, each with its own purpose.

For instance, Earth Nature is a blend of peppermint, lemon and orange for an “energizing” scent. Now imagine how the peppermint would feel in a shampoo.
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A mix of ylang-ylang, jasmine and rose is a soothing combo, said Geralts.

Oils, which can be touched on pulse points for a long-lasting fragrance, cost $26. A perfume spray, which is diffused with alcohol, costs $22.

The Body Shop allows creative types to customize their scent with “Invent Your Own Scent,” for $28. Nine different scents in 3- milliliter sizes are meant to be blended together.

The Body Shop’s Katherine Newcomer sprays a little Citrella, which like it sounds is a citrus fragrance, then blasts a little Velique, a floral scent with hints of palmarosa, peony and sequoia, to create another scent. The store describes the combination as flirty.

Going dancing at the club? Blend Amorito, which has notes of jasmine, chocolate and vanilla, with Zinzibar, hints of ginger, freesia and cedarwood.

Larger versions, 30 milliliters, are available for $16. Massage oils, which start at $6, can also be scented.

Dee Dee Ternes, who owns Lotions & Potions, can blend from 17 essential oils and tens of fragranced manmade oils including chocolate.

Because essential oils are natural oils, one-fourth ounce can cost anywhere from $6 for orange or eucalyptus to $16 for patchouli at the Greendale shop.

Expect to pay between $6 (for one-fifth of an ounce) to $40 (for 2 1/4 ounces) for manmade fragrances.

Fragrance oils, which are concentrated and don’t contain alcohol, can be used on the skin for a scent or custom-blended into body care products or even into candles, soaps and potpourri.

Ternes’ employees and customers have come up with several other uses for the oils such as using a drop of eucalyptus oil in the shower to help open sinuses.

A little lavender in the bath water, body lotion or shower gel can set the mood for relaxation.

“More people are coming in knowing what they want,” Ternes said. Lavender is the most popular, followed by the woodsy patchouli and eucalyptus.

Ternes is about to enter into her busiest season, at least for home fragrances.

As the weather turns and people begin closing windows, they compensate with home scents, particularly apple-cinnamon in autumn and evergreen in winter, she said.

UNCAPPING PERFUME SECRETS

We’re not saying it’s easy to make your own perfume at home by using essential oils and alcohol, but it is possible.

The basics

Perfume is made up of base notes (the smell that stays the long- est on your skin), middle notes (the smell that stays second long- est) and top notes (the smell of oil evaporates first).

Start with the essential oils that are most easily found. Use base notes such as cedar wood, cinnamon, patchouli, sandalwood or vanilla. Middle notes would be clove, geranium, lemongrass, neroli and ylang-ylang. Top notes include bergamot, lavender, lemon-lime and neroli. The notes can be bridged by using a few drops of vanilla or lavender to bring the three levels together.

Making a potion

For perfume, mix at least 25 drops of essential oils roughly divided between base, middle and top notes into a glass container. Start with the base notes, then middle then top. Add a few drops of the bridge oil and then add 2 ounces of alcohol such as 100-proof vodka and shake for a few minutes.

Let it sit for 48 hours or up to six weeks. The longer it marinates, the stronger the smell.

Then add 2 tablespoons of spring water, stir and pour through a coffee filter. Then bottle the ingredients.

On Tuesday, Sara Lee Corp. completed the spinoff of Hanesbrands, its apparel unit. Today the new company, with Hanes, Wonderbra and Champion brands under its belt, begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the HBI ticker.

The transaction ends the biggest restructuring in Sara Lee’s 67- year history. In 18 months, the company sold off six units that had accounted for 40 percent of its revenues. It raised more than $3.9 billion, including $2.4 billion from Hanesbrands.

In the tax-free spinoff, investors as of Aug. 18 received one share of Hanesbrands for every eight shares of Sara Lee they own. Hanesbrands, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., sells lingerie, underwear and clothing to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and other retailers. The division had $4.49 billion in sales for the year ending July 1, compared with $4.68 billion a year earlier.

Hanesbrands is challenged by a very competitive market. Its brands, including Bali, L’eggs and Playtex, can’t perform well in a market increasingly filled with Asian-manufactured garments carrying the lower prices Wal-Mart and Target shoppers covet, analysts say.

“They’re in the middle of a very big fight right now. Off-shore Asian-produced undergarments are their biggest competitors right now,” said Gregg Warren, an equity analyst at Morningstar Inc. “They have not been able to compete effectively.”
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Competitor Fruit of the Loom went into bankruptcy before being purchased by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, for example.

“These guys are caught at the lower end of the spectrum,” Warren said.

“It’s more for everyday, basic people, and they’re going to shop on price. That eliminates any major benefit you get from a brand.”

About 30 percent of Hanesbrands sales are at Wal-Mart.

Target accounts for 11 percent of its sales.

Its large scale is a plus in keeping costs in check — its brands claim the No. 1 or No. 2 market share in eight areas — but Hanesbrands still will shift more of its work force to Asia, CEO Rich Noll said.

cjackson@suntimes.com

- - -

THE THINNER SARA LEE

The Chicago-based firm is slimming down to focus on its food, beverage, and household and body care businesses.

What’s gone:

(Divestitures since February 2005)

Direct selling: Sold to Tupperware Corp. for $557 million.

U.S. retail coffee: Sold to Segafredo Zanetti Group for $82.5 million.

European-branded apparel: Sold to Sun Capital Partners affiliate for $117 million.

European meats: Sold to Smithfield Foods Inc. for $614 million.

European nuts and snacks: Sold to PepsiCo Inc. for $152 million.

Sara Lee Branded Apparel (Brands include Bali, Just My Size, Hanes, Hanes Her Way, L’eggs, Playtex, Wonderbra, Champion): Spun off for $2.4 billion.

There is such a thing and deficiencies of them can lead to heart disease, fatigue, depression, skin problems and more. That’s why EFAsense offers an essential fatty acid product line that includes evening primrose oil, organic flax oil, milled flax, borage oil and fish oil that makes it easy to incorporate EFAs into the diet. EFAsense is available at your local health food store, or have your retailer call (866) EFA-INFO.Growing research shows that soy can be beneficial to women in their menopause years. That’s why Natural Vitality has created Menopausitive, a ready-to-drink beverage that was designed to bring balance to menopausal women. Each drink is said to contain 24 herbs, 29 vitamins and minerals, 16 gm of soy protein and 110 mg of soy isoflavones. Menopausitive is available in Mocha Latte, Vanilla Cinnamon Chai and Chocolate Truffle. Have your retailer call (530) 894-0900.

E-I-E-I-O!

Forget lions and tigers and monkeys. Country Choice Naturals introduces a new line of Certified Organic Animal Cookies in the shapes of horse, sheep, cows, chickens and ducks. The cookies, which come in two-ounce bags, are available in chocolate, vanilla and mixed. Pick ‘em up at your local health food store, or have your retailer call (800) 328-2375.

Shea butter, which is extracted from shea tree nuts found in West Africa, is said to be “one of the best all-natural beauty products that nature offers.” Desert Essence introduces its latest line of shea butter body care products: shampoo, conditioner, body scrub, body cream and Lip Rescue. They’re available at your local health food store, or have your retailer call (800) 645-5768.

Flower power

Need relief from problem skin but don’t want to use steroids or harsh chemicals? Check out CamoCare’s new Soothing Cream. The cream is all natural and contains extract from a German chamomile plant, Matricaria camomilla. It’s available in health food stores, or have your retailer call (800) CAMOCARE.

Though not luring women in droves, Procter & Gamble is sticking with Reflect.com. Will the custom beauty site shine–or leave P&G with an unsightly blemish on its record?

Perhaps you can teach an old dog new tricks. Makeup tricks, at any rate. Procter & Gamble’s $80 million investment in Reflect.com is an attempt to break new ground on a couple of levels: It is the first-ever business to offer customized beauty products over the Internet. For P&G, it is also a sign that the consumer products giant–long the standard bearer of drugstore items from diapers to detergent–is committed to becoming a more technologically savvy While P&G has been looking for ways to boost revenues and cut costs to help its bottom line in the wake of last month’s restructuring, it does seem to be putting up the necessary financial muscle and sticking with some of its more forward-looking experiments, including leasing marketing and technological expertise through its Magnifi venture and its joint deal to produce juice drinks with Coca-Cola.

Reflect.com, meanwhile, is the company’s first foray into e-tailing and mass customization. While other sites like Beauty.com and the now-defunct Eve.com and Beautyjungle.com have all offered essentially the same array of products available in stores, Reflect is the first online marketer that allows users to create their own cosmetics– everything from skin and body care items to hair care, color cosmetics, fragrances and accessories.
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Started during the regime of P&G’s former CEO Durk Jager and currently headed up by ex-Hasbro CEO Ginger Kent, Reflect was formed in September 1999 along with venture capital firms Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures. Though P&G has a 65% stake in the San Francisco-based firm, it operates as a separate and privately owned company Now with 80 employees, Reflect is, as insiders refer to it, “the best of both worlds,” combining ex-P&G staffers and Internet entrepreneurs.

Yet the jury is still out on whether the experiment is working. “We’re learning that customization is powerful,” Kent said. “We’re learning how to have strong relationships with consumers … what’s exciting is that [Reflect] is a self-discovery process, and people love that.”

Kent said the site is “well on its way to profitability,” though she would not commit to a time frame other than “before five years.”

On the plus side, Reflect.com is now generally considered the No. 2 visited beauty Web site, second to Sephora.com. The company recently announced that it has done over a million “customizations” since it became operational, though it would not divulge how many of those resulted in bona fide sales.

According to Internet consultant Angela Kapp, former svp/head of Estee Lauder’s online operations, the one million figure is not especially impressive. Dot-com gurus say the typical conversion rate (site visitors who make purchases) is about 5%. In the case of Amazon, which has one of the best, the rate is 9%. Reflect won’t reveal its conversion rate, but analysts believe that even to assume it has sold between 300,000 and 400,000 products is estimating on the high side. “I’m guessing, but it seems unlikely that more than 20 or 30% of those customizations became sales,” said Kapp.

Given the relative newness of the venture, it may be too soon to be talking about revenue, much less profits. “With any direct marketing business you really need at least two years to assess financial success,” said Jim Nail, analyst at Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass. “If Reflect can get close to breaking even that’s good, but probably unlikely,” added Don Pettit, president and CEO of consultancy The Sterling Group, New York, and a former P&G marketer.

Still, things appear to have picked up in 2001. February was a record revenue month and repeat purchases were “very significant,” according to Reflect’s vp-marketing Richard Gerstein, a 13-year P&G veteran who has worked on brands including Pert, Noxzema and Cover Girl. “Our biggest challenge now is how to get consumers to believe in our products,” Gerstein said. “We have lots of visitors, but still need to develop more credibility.”manufacturer and marketer.

Since its February 2005 reorganization, the Chicago-based company has shed 40 percent of its business, including the spin-off of its profitable Hanesbrands Inc. apparel division earlier this month.

“I’m very happy to say we’re standing here now a very different company than we were those 18 months ago,” Barnes said during the meeting at a downtown hotel. “We did a lot of heavy lifting, and we’re now poised to drive growth.”

The maker of Ball Park hot dogs, Hillshire Farms deli meats and the company’s namesake desserts wants to build its revenue by 2 percent to 4 percent each year, Sara Lee officials said. The company also wants to focus on developing new products and increasing its stock price, which has had a 52-week range of $14.08 to $19.64.
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In its food service division, it’s expanding the line of Flavor Fusion Pies from four varieties to nine, including a pumpkin pecan praline with vanilla crust. It’s also offering toasted sandwiches and introducing single-serving espresso for small restaurants and offices through Senseo.

New products are expected to account for 15 percent of the 2007 sales in the company’s household and body care business. That’s double the percentage of sales from new products in fiscal 2006.

New products touted Monday included a face wash from the Philippines and a version of the successful Ambi Pur air freshener that automatically releases a different fragrance every 45 minutes.

A hundred years old and eyeing women for rejuvenation.

That’s Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp.’s Kiwi brand, which is checking out women’s shoes and feet in an effort to put more pep into its step.

The brand, which is 100 years old, aims to get more women polishing their shoes, with new products, including Colour Gloss — a single-use polish-applicator combo — and Quick ‘n Clean shoe wipes. The products are being launched in the United Kingdom, where the brand is based.

The rationale for the move?

Come on.

Women? Shoes?

“Women seem to be true shoe lovers, owning at least twice as many pairs of shoes as men,” Vincent Janssen, CEO of Sara Lee’s Household & Body Care unit told a group of analysts Monday Women’s footwear accounted for the largest share, 43 percent, of the $40 billion U.S. market in 2004, while men’s footwear made up another 22.8 percent, according to a March report by Marketresearch.com. (Athletic footwear accounted for 24.7 percent.)

Kiwi is Sara Lee’s most global brand, with sales of $280 million in 200 countries. The top-selling shoe care brand in the world, it pushes five round tins of polish every second. But relying on traditional shoe-polishing products is becoming less effective for sales in a flat market, Janssen said. People are dressing more casually for work, which has slowed some shoe shine-related business.  Other new products for women being launched in the U.K. focus more on clean, comfy, fresh-smelling feet. Shapely pairs of women’s legs are featured on the packaging for the new Smiling Feet shoe gel pads, Foot Silk spray and Fresh’ins deodorizer inserts in the U.K.

The line marks Kiwi’s first step into the growing foot care market.

In the United States, the shoe inserts will be marketed to women, while the stateside version of the new Colour Gloss will feature gender neutral — ugh, black — packaging. The products will hit shelves here beginning next year.

While individual genetics, age, environment, and overall health combine to create allergic reactions, increasing worldwide pollution coupled with overcrowding, contaminated water and food, and indoor air contaminants overload the immune system and intensify allergic symptoms. Escalating levels of pollutants often build up in the body, exceeding and incapacitating the body’s natural detoxification capabilities. When this happens, common indoor air contaminants from synthetic cleaning agents and synthetic colognes, perfumes, body care products, and air fresheners further infiltrate and damage delicate immune pathways. Detoxification mechanisms become exhausted of nutrient reserves of precursor/co-factors nutrients needed by the liver to keep the lymphatic system and immune system from being overloaded and incapacitated. In an attempt to guard the body against this toxic overload, the immune system stimulates the release of a number of inflammatory chemicals, including histamine.
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Between 15 and 37% of the American population consider themselves sensitive or allergic to chemicals, car exhaust, tobacco smoke, air fresheners, and the scents of many common household cleaning agents and body care products. Some allergic individuals have to contend with headaches, seizures, fainting, dizziness, extreme fatigue, muscle or joint pain, asthma, sinusitis, insomnia, irregular heartbeat, maldigestion, depression, and anxiety or panic attacks when they are exposed to a potential allergen.

There seems to be a higher prevalence of complex, multisystem disorders in allergic individuals as many end up with fibromylagia or leaky gut syndrome at some point in their life. And since many inflammatory disorders such as fibromylagia involve the excess storage of toxins in the joints and connective tissue the allergic connection to disorders of human toxicity makes perfect sense. In addition, many treatment-resistant patients struggle with hidden food allergies caused by a weakened and compromised digestive system. Food elimination and rotation diets fail to produce any significant clinical results because the real causes (indoor air pollution, dental foci and silent chronic infections, nutritional deficiencies and dietary factors, and toxicity) of their illness remain obscured and masked by antihistamines, decongestants, anti-inflammatory drugs, and cortisone.

The Problem: GRS Burdening and Congestion

The ground regulation system (GRS) in patients with allergies is sluggish and overburdened. When the GRS shifts to a Gel-state, one’s detoxification and elimination capacity becomes diminished. [1] Cellular biocommunication via the GRS is often disturbed and the immune system can overreact to common environmental factors such as pollen and common molds.

GRS toxicity lowers energetic diagnostic information and can even falsify measurement values at acupoints. Computerized regulation thermography (CRT), although helpful in revealing dysregulation of this nature, may initially fail to reveal the true functional status of organ/meridian and teeth/meridian connections. In advanced cases, lymph nodes become swollen and congested, losing their ability to protect the body against infection and other chemical stress factors. When GRS dynamics are reduced, pleomorphic infections often lead to serious incapacitating infections as endotoxins (the deadly agents of sepsis) find their way into the lymph system causing inflammation that leads to allergic hypersensitivity and lifelong allergic symptoms that often require seasonal or constant medication. This pattern of abnormal physiology can escalate and lead to virus proliferation, tumor formation and serious life-threatening illness.

Even when patients take nutritional supplements and eat a healthy nutritional diet, chronic malnourishment from GRS congestion is evident. The inefficient nutrient uptake by the villus cells in stress-damaged guts and poor nutrient transport via the GRS requires the use of novel ways to boost nutrient uptake. Our clinical research has shown that the judicious use of carriers and co-transporters in supplementary nutrients is extremely helpful as nutrients are more likely to be transported via the villus cells, through the GRS, and to the cells of the body. When combined with bioactive compounds in plants such as medicinal mushrooms, there is a greater potential to augment deficient immune functions, modulate powerful immune responses, and increase cellular levels of glutathione transferase and glucuronyl transferase. [2-9] The increasing level of toxicity in supplements presents a serious challenge to allergic individuals as researchers have noted that over 90% of natural supplements contain one or more toxic or allergenic ingredients that may trigger allergic reactions, silently suppress immunity and slowly increase the toxic load of the GES. [10]

In late June, Sears will introduce health food shops in 10 of its full-line stores in California, bringing to the states a concept it has offered successfully in Canada for 18 years.

The retailer has sold health products in its Canadian stores through Claydan Enterprises Inc., recently acquired by fitness company Cetalon Corp., which will continue to own and manage the U.S. shops.

The boutique-style shops will operate as store departments called Sears Health & Nutrition Centers and will carry national brand vitamins and herbs, including TwinLabs, Nature’s Way and Country Life, plus nutritional systems and health technology. According to Sears and Cetalon, the shops’ knowledgeable, trained staff sets them apart from stores that just sell products. Sears believes this store-within-a-store can concept enhance the shopping experience, according to Jack Krings, Sears’ vp and general manager for licensed businesses. “[Cetalon is] a model we feel fits with our customers,” he told DSN Retailing Today. “They’re a service-oriented company and can offer products our customer wants. They have expertise that would be hard for us to replicate as quickly as we would like. We think it will provide something beyond what [Sears] could do alone.”

“Sears discovered their customers are very heavy buyers in the [health food] category; they’re just doing it somewhere else,” Cetalon ceo Harvey Goldstein said. Moreover, Sears’ substantial market share in fitness equipment complements Cetalon’s offerings, he added. Sears decided to test the concept’s viability in the health-oriented Los Angeles and San Francisco markets before expanding it nationwide. According to Krings, the test process includes learning what part of the Sears store the Cetalon shops work best in, which is why they will be located in varying spots in the 10 California stores.

Based on results from the Canadian stores, Cetalon expects roughly 80% of sales to come from vitamins and supplements, about 14% from natural body care and 5% to 7% from informational products such as books, tapes and technical gadgets.

“It’s what you would find in a health food store but not in a traditional department store or mass-market store,” Goldstein said.

Both companies benefit from the synergies of the store-within-a-store model, which gives Cetalon access to Sears’ customer base, Cetalon vice chairman and cfo John Bryan said. The startup firm likes Sears’ customer loyalty and especially where its management is taking the company.

“They’re a progressive, sophisticated retailer,” Goldstein said. “Looking 10 years out, we really like our partner.”

Cetalon is developing a private-label brand of vitamins and herbs exclusive to Sears, consisting of two full lines containing 70 to 120 skus, according to Goldstein, who added the brand won’t carry the Sears name.

The shops will also sell home healthcare products such as oxygen bottles and wheelchairs and what Cetalon calls a new wave of health information technology. For example, the California stores will feature a weight-management machine called BodyGem, where for about $15 a pop customers can have their oxygen consumption measured and thus determine their precise metabolic rate.

Sears is the only mass retail channel where BodyGem, also offered in physicians’ offices and some high-end health clubs, will be carried, Bryan said. Cetalon sells an accompanying software package tailored for hand-held devices that can analyze a person’s daily food intake.

“Our strategy is to take the vitamin/minerals/supplements category to a new level of science and technology,” Bryan said.

The Southern California stores are set to pre-open June 23, with a grand opening planned for about July 1, near the time the Bay Area stores will pre-open. Cetalon and Sears are shooting for annual sales of $500,000 per store initially, although ultimate goals are higher. Cetalon hopes to eventually expand the shops beyond Sears.