New Business Spotlight: Nutritious Smoothie Bar Comes to Town

It's a new year with another new business in Oakdale.

For those of you ready to kick off 2013 with some healthy meal choices in town — you're in luck. 

Top Tier Nutrition recently opened up in Bergen Plaza. It offers meal replacement shake packages as well as retails its products, among other services. 

Oakdale Patch caught up with the new business owner. Here's the scoop on Top Tier Nutrition: 

Full business name: Top Tier Nutrition

Address: 7025 10th Street, Oakdale, MN

Owner: Chase Rickord

Number of employees: 2

Open date in Oakdale: Nov. 5

Hours of operation: Mon/Wed/Fri: 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Tues/Thurs: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturdays: 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; closed on Sundays.

Contact information: 763-213-9393, TopTierNutrition@gmail.com

Oakdale Patch: What services and products does your business provide?

Rickord: We’re kind of like private nutrition. We have a full smoothie bar where people come in for breakfast and lunch to get a lot of nutrients from our shakes. They are meal replacement shakes. You get a shot of aloe with the shake and you also get an 8-ounce tea for an energy boost, which is the exact opposite of a pop. It’s a smoothie bar setting, but then we also do personal wellness coaching as well. So we educate on getting individuals to their health goal, whether it’s to lose weight or they have digestive issues or heart issues. We love to help people get healthy.

All that we serve here are meal replacements, but we have some products if people wanted more of a protein shake or wanted something geared toward an athlete. 

Oakdale Patch: Do you have other locations? If so, where? 

Rickord: We have over 70,000 locations worldwide. They are all independently owned. This is the only one that I personally own. There are about 20,000 Starbacks worldwide, so there are a lot of these. We’re just trying to offer easy health options and really help people.   

Oakdale Patch: What made you want to open a business in Oakdale?

Rickord: I saw an opportunity where there are a lot of people. I see that people have busy schedules here in the cities and it looked like the right opportunity to jump in. I kind of toured Oakdale locations and I liked what I saw. It’s not too far from where I live in St. Paul, and it’s just a perfect opportunity; there’s nothing really like this around here. 

Oakdale Patch: What is your price range for your shakes?

Rickord: If people just want to use our shake or smoothie bar, it is $7.50 for all three (a shot of aloe, 8-ounce tea and 8-ounce smoothie). We also do free personal wellness coaching. We educate about the nutrients going in body. We have a lot of free services like free wellness evaluations where we help you figure out how much protein you should be taking in, how much water. 

We also carry Herbal Life products, the largest weight loss and management company in the world.

Oakdale Patch: Can people buy the shakes and teas individually or do they come in a package? 

Rickord: We recommend all three, so we really just sell the entire meal. We don’t like to split it up, but you can for instance make it all at home. We have over 40 different shake recipes, so we can retail products as well. Then we can teach you how to do it.

Oakdale Patch: Do you feel like there is a good market for your business in this area?

Rickord: Absolutely. The weight loss industry alone is a huge industry — about a $500 billion industry and that will double in the next four to five years. So we take a stand on what is healthy. It’s really about educating people. There are so many products or providers out there that just want to sell you products and not teach you how to use it. We really want personal relationships. How can we help you with this and that? So really it’s my philosophy to get to know each person who walks through the door. It’s more than walking in the door to get a shake and leaving. 

Oakdale Patch: Any final comments or additional information for customers?

Rickord: It’s a really fun atmosphere. We try to relate to everybody. We love health and healthy people. 

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