On a Healthy Journey

The company’s beginnings: After Greg Cooper left for college, his father, Hal, bought a health food store, Arizona Health Foods, in their hometown of Phoenix. After numerous phone conversations regarding the business’s future, Greg left school to help his father open more stores.

Arizona Health Foods catalog, which sell dietary foods and supplements, started out of necessity, explains Cooper. Soon after the third store opened, major road construction — slated to last two years — virtually shut down store business. “I had to find a way to sell goods,” he notes. He tested the direct marketing channel by first running a small ad in an industry magazine; he developed a catalog after that. “I wouldn’t spend the money on a catalog unless I knew I had customers.”