Mountain Medicine: Candelaria Helps Neighbors Through Health Store
Pilot Mountain owner makes changes to stay available
By AMIE KNOWLES
PILOT MOUNTAIN — In the 1990s, graphic artist Susie Candelaria experienced a drastic career change when she landed a job at a health food store.
“The reason I got into working in natural medicine, or in the health food industry, was because of my own health issues that I was challenged with in the 1980s,” Candelaria said. “I started studying herbs and I changed my diet and things got so much better. I became really enthralled. I couldn’t stop reading to understand more and more about not only herbal medicine, but nutrition and also classical homeopathy and other modalities of healing in natural medicine.”
As Candelaria moved up in the health food market ranks to supplement manager and then departmental manager at large health food stores in the Triad region, she started thinking about opening a shop of her own in the area she called home, Pilot Mountain.
“I think I’ve always had the entrepreneurial spirit,” Candelaria said. “I [just] needed to work for other folks to start with, in order to get my experience in the health food industry.”
In 1999, Candelaria turned her dream into a reality when she opened Blue Mountain Herbs. In 2006, she expanded her storefront to its current location at 106 W Main St in Pilot Mountain.
Word of the herb and supplement store spread, even reaching customers across state lines.
“I gradually grew it, providing service and assistance with natural remedies and preventative medicine to the local community and then also the greater community because folks knew me in the Triad. Folks knew me even up in Virginia through my work in the years previous to that,” Candelaria said. “I started developing more of not just a local, but more of a regional customer base.”
A Well-Researched Selection
You can find things like grape seed extract, coral calcium and colostrum at the store, along with best sellers like elderberry and plenty of multivitamins.
“Let me explain how I stock my shelf. I’m very different from just your regular, average sort of little retailer. What I do, I’ve gone on to get regular training in natural medicine over all these years,” Candelaria said. “I’m extremely picky. I scrutinize every formula that I bring in. I custom stock my shelf with items that I know, that I’ve read good data, that I’ve seen excellent research on.”
For the small business owner, it’s less about making a buck and more about focusing on remedies and preventative measures that actually work for her customers.
“With all of everything going on, we want to help prevent illness, if we can, because preventative medicine, of course, is what natural medicine does best with — to feed the body healthy nutrition through not just healthy dietary choices, but also through healthy nutritional supplements,” Candelaria said.
With coronavirus in full force in the United States and no vaccine available, the Blue Mountain Herbs owner first saw an increase in sales last month.
“Over the last month, I saw a surge of people, basically, as most of us in the health food industry have seen,” Candelaria said. “We’ve seen people really just come and stock up.”
The business owner expressed that the large number of people looking for the same things caused manufacturers to run out of certain items. Now, they’re trying to catch up to meet the demand, which leaves some shelves empty.
After the initial wave of people stocking up with their health food, herbs and supplemental essentials, sales at Blue Mountain Herbs dropped by approximately 40 percent.
Candelaria revised the store’s hours to Monday through Saturday from 12 to 4 p.m., offered curbside service for pickup orders and also implemented delivery options.
“What people do is they call me and we talk about what they are needing. I gather their items together and I process the sale over the phone using a credit or debit card, trying to be cautious of not taking cash, of course, because cash transfers a lot of stuff,” Candelaria said.
Just Taking It Day by Day
With executive orders and national statistics changing rapidly, Candelaria said she’s taking the business day by day.
“All of us individually, as we understand how this unfolds across the country and also locally, every day we may have to make some changes,” Candelaria said.
The business owner is currently figuring out the next steps for Blue Mountain Herbs.
“I am considered an essential business, which allows me the opportunity to be here, but also to revise how I’m here so that not only am I being safe for the community, but I’m also being safe for me, too. So that’s what I’m trying to figure out this week,” Candelaria said. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going to happen and how do I reach my customers if I’m just going to be here for a few days or a couple days a week or whatever? It’s a very, very challenging time to be a small business owner, for sure.”
Candelaria said she doesn’t currently have a website, but now hopes to get one up and running in the future. She currently advertises through her business’s Facebook page.
Dealing with COVID-19 or not, Candelaria expressed her goal is always the same: to continuously reinvent her store to provide service for her community. But she’s definitely ready for things to get back to normal.
“I just need to be able to open up that front door again, and put my sign out on the sidewalk and announce it over my business Facebook page and say, ‘Hey folks, come on back in here!’ It will be such an emotional day for me,” Candelaria said.
Until that day, Candelaria plans to continue taking orders over the phone at (336) 368–5955. To keep up with the latest changes due to COVID-19, follow the Blue Mountain Herbs Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BlueMtnHerbs.
