May 2019
If everyone in this country was as obsessed over healthy, organic food that Rob Pell is, the health care woes of this country would be solved immediately. The owner of Sunshine Natural Foods (128 SW H Street) has been into the natural food movement since the 1970s when he and his wife Kate (also co-owner of the store) met in Boston while he was roasting 3,000 pounds of granola a day for the largest natural food manufacturer in the country.
“In 1981 Kate and I opened what became one of the best natural foods restaurants in the country,” Rob said. “We were featured several times on CNN, CBS, and the Food Network. By 1995 we wanted to get our kids out of the rat race in the Northeast corridor. Everyone was obsessed with money. I had first visited Oregon in the late 70s and was blown away by the experience. Hiking the 3 Sisters, the bike lanes in Eugene, and the Chinook salmon were things I hadn’t seen before. Plus it seemed like people in Southern Oregon were willingly sacrifice some earning potential for a more sane and nourishing lifestyle, so we decided to make the move.”
Sunshine is both a natural foods (and supplements) store and a restaurant, featuring fast, super-healthy organic salads, juice bars, organic soups, roll-up sandwiches and desserts, a broad spectrum supplement section, organic produce, organic chicken, and fresh-frozen sustainable seafood from Port Orford.
“We strive to provide a consistently healthy, delicious, and positive educational experience for our customers,” Rob said. “We trust that our veteran employees do a very good job fulfilling that mission. We receive about 100 on-line evaluations from our customers every month. I enjoy reading and responding to every one. They nearly always tell us our employees are doing a great job.”
Sunshine Natural Foods is a true mom-and-pop operation, as all four Pell children (and grandchildren) have worked the store at various times. In fact, Kate is now retired, and her daughter Liz, a married mother of two, has taken over many of her responsibilities.
Rob is a firm believer in the importance of healthy soils, and they supply local farms with nearly 10,000 pounds a year of organic vegetable scraps from the kitchen and juice bar to help regenerate healthy soils.
The store features a Wellness Library that can also be accessed on their website (SunsineFoodAndVitamin.com). Every month, Rob publishes a store Newsletter (“The Sun Times”), while contributing a monthly health column to the Sneak Preview. He is also author of the book, Wellness Uprising.
Recently, Sunshine Natural Foods has also offered a line of locally produced, premium CBD products that have provided consistently favorable results. “The product comes from organically produced CBD that is certified low THC hemp and will not make you high,” Rob said. “The feedback from our customers has been outstanding.”
For more info, call 541-474-5044. You can also like them on Facebook.
