A Note from the Founder…
Dear Cherished Customers,
Some of you are newer customers, and others have been with us for decades, but I want to thank all of you for your support of our small business and to update you on what’s going on with HealthForce…
First, a little background…
HealthForce began as just an idea of mine several decades ago when I was very young, still in school, had just learned about health and nutrition, and wanted to help others achieve the absolute best of health and happiness possible. I worked on my first mail order catalog of health products after school and on weekends. Then, a couple years later, I met a special guy who became my boyfriend (and eventually my husband, Jameth), and we joined forces in growing this small company. We also became naturopaths and health researchers, applying our research to the products we formulated. 
Back then the Internet was nothing like it is today, and we were broke students who couldn’t afford a computer, so we used the library computer at first, and we built our company the old fashioned way, from the ground up, with nothing but nonstop hard work and sacrifice, including lots of sleep-deprivation and all-nighters, working seven days a week, including weekends and holidays, for years on end. We had to take side jobs just to pay the bills, and for a time we even lived in our car so that we could pour all of our earnings into the business. We never sold out to investors, which made things very difficult at times, but it was important to us to maintain the integrity of the products, and to put our customers first. Today that has become more important than ever as more and more companies in our industry are being bought out by Big Pharma and the junk food industry.
At first, a handful of our products were packaged in plastic bottles, but as soon as we were able to bottle those products in glass, we switched over right away, as glass is superior in many ways (much better preservation of products, non-toxic, and more). To this day, despite increasing costs, all of our products are packaged in glass, other than the huge containers of Warrior Food, as we’ve never been able to obtain amber glass bottles in that size. However, we’ve always used the best and healthiest huge containers we can find; and we are actively in the process of switching that size over to more ideal packaging as well. More and more companies are doing the opposite nowadays, switching over to plastic in order to save money; but we feel that would be going backward, and we have made a commitment to never do that.
We originally sold our products direct to consumers through our mail order catalog and our popular Uncooking with Jameth and Kim classes. Later, we built our first website and began selling our products online. Eventually, through hard work and determination, we managed to get them onto health food store shelves, making weekly deliveries out of the trunk of our beat up old car. Our very first employee was my mom, who worked for us for free. One of our first products was a human-grade green superfood blend for animals (beginning with our own rescues), called Green Mush. We created a similar product for humans, which became the first green superfood supplement of its kind on health food store shelves. It was originally called The Ultimate Nutritional Supplement, later changed to Ultra Green, and ultimately came to be known as Vitamineral Green.
Eventually I stepped down from HealthForce, as I had many other pursuits on my plate; and Jameth took charge as HealthForce’s benevolent leader, passionate spokesperson, and gifted formulator for many, many years. Later, he stepped down also and turned the management over to others so that he could follow new dreams of his own, until his totally unexpected and very untimely passing. I plan to write a book to tell his whole story, which I hope will help and inspire all who read it. He was a true hero who helped many others, often at his own expense, and he definitely left his mark on this world. Losing him was the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced, and it broke me in ways I could never have imagined. After he passed, HealthForce landed back on my plate, amidst an avalanche of other responsibilities, and I’ve done my very best to keep it going under unimaginable circumstances because I believe in the products and I’ve seen how they have changed many lives. Your testimonials are a HUGE part of what has kept me going.
Fast forward to today…
Unfortunately, HealthForce has been hit very hard over the past few years due to a number of factors. Not only have we been adversely affected by the economy, but the marketplace has changed dramatically since our first few decades, with copycat companies and cheap imitations of Vitamineral Green (and our other products) cropping up all the time. Due to these other companies often using lower quality ingredients or processes (sometimes with cheap fillers) and cheap plastic packaging, they are able to afford using slick marketing campaigns to steer consumers away from the few remaining companies like HealthForce that are dedicated to using top-notch ingredients, processes, and packaging. Furthermore, ongoing expense increases on every front, in conjunction with this decrease in sales, have completely eliminated our profit margins.
In an effort to turn things around, our former marketing team, with the very best of intentions, started creating marketing campaigns aimed at following the newer business model set up by those other higher profit companies, with constant ongoing site-wide deep-discount sales, flash sales, and store promo discounts, all of which did increase overall sales, so I’m happy they were able to get more of our products out there to help people. However, unfortunately, we actually lost money in the process, due to all of the expenses involved in manufacturing our products in the first place, not to mention the costs of marketing, customer service, shipping, and the myriad of other expenses involved in running a business. This further backfired by inadvertently devaluing our products, basically creating less and less customers who are even willing to pay full price. This is totally understandable, of course. When people see regular sales, they quickly realize it would be best to just wait for the next sale. However, with top notch products like ours (and all of the expenses we incur in creating them), full price orders — and a good amount of them — are necessary in order to make ends meet, which we’re still not doing.
As a result of all of the above, we’ve been in the red for a couple years now, and things were already going downhill even before that. I personally don’t take a paycheck at all anymore, and I’ve been covering some of HealthForce’s expenses myself (with funds from my side eco-renovation/real estate business) for the past few years. However, at this point I’ve sold off all the real estate in an effort to keep HealthForce going, and my own personal funds have run dry. Needless to say, after decades of hard work and dedication, I’m very disheartened at having to start over myself at this stage in life, and thus I can no longer afford to bail HealthForce out financially. So that’s the bad news. However, take heart, as there is always a way through challenges like this…
I am now stepping back in fully and going through the grueling process of having to completely restructure the company in order to save it. Among other things, we are in the process of a much-needed and long-overdue price increase (which will allow for reasonable periodic sales), and we also recently completed a rebranding, with updated marketplace-friendly labels and an updated version of our original logo as well. Thanks to our amazing team, our beautiful new labels will be released as soon as we sell through the old ones. And that’s where you, dear customers, come in…
A heartfelt call to action…
If you believe in what we stand for and want to help keep HealthForce going, while also collecting some of the remaining products with our longtime labels and classic logo, before our prices increase, please stock up now on whatever you can. (The photos on our website show what our labels currently look like, as they’ve changed a few times over the decades.) I know it’s hard to pay full price in a world of constant flash sales (most companies have already factored these sales into their inflated pricing to begin with; we haven’t). However, instead of setting up a GoFundMe account and asking for direct donations to save HealthForce, I’d rather you get something for your hard-earned money, and I’m confident that enough full price orders of our products can indeed save HealthForce. While I’m sorry we can no longer offer big discounts, what we do offer is the absolute best of the best in ingredients, packaging, quality, and integrity. Our formulas have stood the test of time, and my hope and prayer is that they will be able to continue helping people for many more decades to come.
Special offer…
If you’ve read this far and would like to help save HealthForce by placing an order, I’d like to offer a token of my genuine appreciation… If you place an order over $100 this week, I’ll gift you a free limited-edition copy of our classic raw vegan recipe book, Uncooking with Jameth and Kim. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s where a lot of popular raw food classic recipes originated, including the famous flax crackers, sprouted/dehydrated nut/grain recipes, raw zucchini spaghetti, and more. Code: SaveHF (Limited Edition, Out of Print, One Per Customer, Offer Good 9/1 – 9/7/24, While Supplies Last.)
One more thing…
Whoever places the largest order between now and September 7, 2024 will also receive one of our classic logo limited-edition organic tote bags that I’ve filled with a few surprise goodies.
Thank you for your time, and I wish you the best of health and happiness!
Very sincerely,
Kim Sheridan, Founder/CEO
HealthForce SuperFoods
“The body is the soul’s house. Shouldn’t we therefore take care of our house so that it doesn’t fall into ruin?” – Philo Judaeus