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#Hometown Food Wholesale too good to go
stenoodie · 4 months
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Too Good To Go Surprise Bags in January 2024
Too Good To Go Surprise Bags in January 2024. #18surprisebags #honeydates #bentoexresssushi #metromeatbags #lumierepatisserie
My TGTG purchases in January 2024 Use the Too Good To Go app to rescue unsold food from being thrown away!  Surprise bags are filled with goods that might be from end-of-day or approaching or just past its “best before” date but definitely still fine to eat.  Download this free app if you haven’t tried it already.  Surprise bags are Continue reading Too Good To Go Surprise Bags in January 2024
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foodmadewithlove · 3 years
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With Delicious and Fresh Seafood, It’s No Wonder Why ‘Turner’s’ Is So Popular
I’ve always loved food. I tend to have high expectations for the meals I am receiving or eating, and strive to find places with a variety of dishes that I can choose from. If I’m going to pay for it, it has to be good. Few restaurants stand up to that measure, but I believe that I might have found one. 
My goal was to find a family-owned and operated restaurant on the North Shore, a place that has been in the family for a long time. Since my Beat Reporting class junior year, I have been a member of the ‘North Shore Eats’ Facebook group page in which members of the North Shore communities suggest and recommend restaurants and places to eat. As I became stuck trying to find places on Google, I decided to reach out and ask members of the group their favorite restaurants that are family-owned and run. I was expecting a few responses, but when I looked at my post the next day, I had ended up receiving over 230 comments. I was blown away by how many people decided to help me, and very excited to look through all the recommendations.
There was one restaurant that everyone kept commenting, a place called ‘Turner’s Seafood’. Seafood is one of my favorite things to eat, especially when I am able to enjoy lobster rolls at the beach during the summer as well as clam chowder throughout the year. Since I love seafood and due to the fact that I had never heard of the restaurant before, I decided to look it up and became overwhelmed by what I found. ‘Turner’s’ had not one, not two, but three locations around the North Shore. The locations are all different, with some focusing on on-site dining and others providing a fresh seafood market for customers. They all looked amazing, but I knew I had to go to the location which started it all.
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(Above) A shot of Turner’s Melrose location that I went to. Credit: Turner’s Seafood website.
20-year-old James F. Turner emigrated from St. John’s Newfoundland in 1922, and started his career on the Boston Fish Pier. With hard work, “Jim” opened ‘Turner Fisheries’ in 1954, eventually becoming one of the leading suppliers of fresh seafood due to the new ability to fly their products anywhere across the country. Due to a myriad of restrictions and regulations surrounding the seafood industry in the 1980s, John Turner (Jim’s only son) established ‘J. Turner Seafoods’ in 1989. This new wholesale company in Gloucester dealt with the lesser amount of supplies and difficult regulations that had been implemented. 
John had four sons, who growing up learned the ins and outs of the seafood industry. In their hometown of Melrose, John’s four sons opened up ‘Turner’s Seafood Grill and Market’ in 1994. The sons decided to expand the business, first creating a Gloucester location in 2006 as well as a market in the same location that ships seafood overnight in 2010. The Turner brothers additionally opened up another restaurant in Salem in 2013. Each restaurant and location is different, but all has that same family-oriented atmosphere to them. On their website, ‘Turner’s’ boasts that 9 of the 4th generation of the Turner family currently work in the three locations.
That’s how I arrived at ‘Turner’s Seafood Grill and Market’, the sons’ original location in Melrose. The seemingly small location is located on one of the main streets in downtown Melrose, among other shops and restaurants. With the onset of warm weather, various people had been sitting in multiple tables outside the restaurant, enjoying drinks such as martinis as well as their food. When I walked in, I was met by the delicious smell of fresh, cooked seafood. The restaurant is much bigger than it looks, split into four sections. The dark colored walls are filled with various seafood-related decorations, such as oars and fake fish. To the right, a glass display case held fresh seafood such as clams and shrimp on ice, in which customers are able to purchase every day. Behind that, a bunch of small tables remain in an ‘oyster bar’ area, where customers can get fresh oysters upon request. 
On the other side of the restaurant, multiple tables covered in blue-striped tablecloths allow customers to get a full dining experience. I was seated in a high top next to the regular tables, near a string-lights covered bar that normally has seating but due to Covid has been removed. I noticed a hard working bartender, making his way through the various drink orders of the night. I could hear him constantly talking with the waitresses, creating a comfortable atmosphere that reminded me of fun family banter. 
The restaurant had the option of ordering through your phone, but I decided to order with a waitress, who welcomed us with a smile and a greeting. Since it was my first time there, she was very helpful in describing the various dishes they had to offer. ‘Turner’s’ has a wide variety of options on their menu, starting with appetizers such as clam chowder that is not bad priced at $6.50 a cup. I went there with my boyfriend, and we decided to start off with a warm crab dip as we both enjoy crab. It didn’t take too long for the appetizer to come, and we were excited to dig in. The plate contained four large soft pretzels, which we were able to dip in a ramekin of warm, delicious crab dip. It was very savory, and I could even find large chunks of crab in my spoonfuls, which greatly impressed me. It was just what we wanted to start off the night. 
It was truly hard to decide what I wanted for my meal, as ‘Turner’s’ has so much to offer. I considered getting the crab roll, but decided that since I just had the crab dip, it would be too much of the same thing. My boyfriend considered getting fish and chips, but we both knew that we wanted to go down to ‘Turner’s’ Gloucester location to eat at their specialty fish and chips shop soon. He ended up getting the yellowfin tuna burger, with fries and a brightly colored slaw as well as a wasabi aioli (that was too spicy for me, but he loved it!). The burger is one of the lower priced items on the menu at $15.00, but is still fairly large for its price and easily able to be shared. I ended up trying his burger, which seemed a little dry to me, but was still full of fresh flavor and seasonings. As for me, I love shrimp, so I decided on getting stuffed shrimp with a baked potato and brussel sprouts as my sides.
When the food arrived, I was very impressed with the overall presentation. Four shrimp sat in the middle, all stuffed with a breadlike seafood vegetable filling. My baked potato was to the left, with a pad of already melted butter sitting in its ridges. The brussel sprouts, which contained bacon, sat on the right. My mouth was watering even before I dug in. The presentation was great, but the food was even better. Each shrimp tasted like it had just come out of the ocean, and the bread filling reminded me of Thanksgiving day stuffing. The filling was a perfect combination with the shrimp, as it added extra flavor and texture. They were topped off with a lobster basil cream sauce, which was heavenly. It had an almost buttery taste to it, a creamy flavoring that was delicious on top of the shrimp. The sauce seeped into my brussel sprouts, which combined with the smokey flavor of the bacon throughout. 
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(Above) The meal I got at Turner’s, a stuffed shrimp dish with a baked potato and brussel sprouts.
The star of the show truly were the roasted brussel sprouts, which were fresh and perfectly charred to perfection. I normally don’t like whole brussel sprouts, but these changed my mind. They were a 2 dollar upgrade, but completely worth it. My baked potato with butter was pretty good, but nothing special, tasting starchy like a normal potato without any seasoning. Even so, it was a delicious meal overall. My dinner wasn’t badly priced either, a steal at $22.00 for a large plate of fresh seafood (which is usually highly priced!). After I ate, I was so full and pleased with what I had just gotten. 
When the check came, I was shocked to see that the price wasn’t higher. I feel that they gave fresh, delicious seafood for a great price, which is amazing. After we left, I knew this could be deemed as one of the best restaurants I had tried in the North Shore area. I will definitely be back, and I of course want to try the other ‘Turner’s’ locations in the area. I encourage you to check out the various ‘Turner’s’ restaurants across the North Shore, you won’t be disappointed!
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luckylq44-blog · 4 years
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The environmental director of the Surfrider Foundation
What Is "Natural" And What Are "Natural" Products?We use the word "natural" a lot to describe all kinds of things. Food, health, supplements, lifestyle and more. This article addresses the definition of natural in general, and natural as it applies to health products in particular.
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gingerjanie-blog · 4 years
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We didn miss a beat until that fourth goal
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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years
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Covid Shot in the Arm Not Enough to Keep Pharmacies in Business
Tobin’s pharmacy and department store had already stocked its shelves with Easter and Mother’s Day items last spring, and the staff had just placed the Christmas orders. The shop in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, had been operating on a razor’s edge as retail sales moved online and mail-order pharmacies siphoned off its patients. It was losing money on 1 out of 4 pill bottles filled, so the front of the store, where it sold clothing, cosmetics and jewelry, had been compensating for pharmacy losses for years.
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This story also ran on Fortune. It can be republished for free.
“And then covid hit,” said Dave Schultz, who co-owned the store with his brother. “And that was the final straw.”
The covid-19 pandemic sank many businesses in 2020, particularly those relying on in-person sales to stay afloat. For pharmacies — especially independent pharmacies — the pandemic lockdowns exacerbated long-standing economic pressures. Many small owner-operated pharmacies adapted quickly, delivering their traditional amenities in safer ways or capitalizing on new services created by the pandemic, such as covid testing and vaccinations. But others, like Tobin’s, became casualties of the pandemic, closing their doors for good.
It’s too early to quantify just how many pharmacies succumbed to covid and assess how patients will be affected. The total number of pharmacies has declined less than 1% over the past five years, as pharmacy chains get larger while independent community pharmacies — often the last place left to fill a prescription in some small towns — go under. The Rural Policy Research Institute found that 1,231 independently owned rural pharmacies, about 16%, closed for good from 2003 to 2018, well before the pandemic pinch. And according to the Drug Channels Institute, after five years of declines, the number of urban and rural independent pharmacies dipped below 20,000 for the first time in 2020.
Revenue from covid testing and vaccinations may help keep some independents afloat, but that comes with added costs and logistical challenges.
“Pharmacies are struggling,” said Harry Lattanzio, president of PRS Pharmacy Services, a consulting firm in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. “We’re getting calls from a lot more pharmacy owners that want to sell their stores. They’ve had enough.”
Most pharmacies, he said, saw a decline in prescriptions last year as customers hesitated to visit their doctors for anything but emergencies. That drop in business also meant fewer sales of over-the-counter medicines and ancillary items sold by the stores. Meanwhile, pharmacies had to buy protective equipment to keep staffers and customers safe and beef up their technology to address the new reality.
Lattanzio said some independent pharmacies, which had always preferred the personal touch of having staff members answer the phones, have had to invest in new systems to handle thousands of calls a day from people seeking vaccines. Costs rose even as revenues dropped.
“For the most part, they lost money,” Lattanzio said. “If you didn’t lose money, you did something really right.”
When Lattanzio opened his first pharmacy 20 years ago, he saw gross profit margins of 36%. Now independent pharmacies are fortunate to see margins of 3% to 5%, if they survive the pandemic at all. Much of that decline comes from the impact of pharmacy benefit managers, which manage commercial and public health plans’ prescription drug reimbursements to pharmacies. Those PBMs, often aligned with large drugstore chains, systematically squeezed the profits out of independent pharmacies. That left many smaller chains or unaffiliated pharmacies unable to bear the added hit from the pandemic.
“I’m afraid to see the outcome,” said Joe Moose, co-owner of Moose Pharmacy, a chain of seven drugstores on the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina. “The delay in payments, the increased cost to keep operating in the early days of this, combined with the fact that reimbursement is so poor already — covid may be the final nail in the coffin for some of us.”
Moose Pharmacy is trying to adapt. When it had to stop in-store purchases during the pandemic, the chain expanded curbside services and hired additional drivers. Home deliveries tripled. Workers ferried food, toilet paper, paper towels and shampoo to customers.
“We had to build out our website. We put in technology so that people could text us from the parking lot. It had to be HIPAA-compliant,” said Moose, who owns the chain with his brother. “And keep in mind that all of that is happening at no change in reimbursement.”
Covid also interrupted the medication supply chain. In normal times, the pharmacy’s supply of drugs is automated, so when it dispenses medicines, replacements show up in the next day’s delivery. But Moose and his staff had to resort to the old way of calling up five or six wholesalers to see who had the drugs in stock.
When covid testing was scarce, the pharmacies taught their employees to perform rapid tests. Once vaccines arrived, Moose sought out patients who couldn’t make an appointment on a smartphone, who couldn’t drive to mass vaccination clinics, or who were just afraid to leave their home.
Staffers delivered vaccines to one elderly man with cancer, whose wife had died a year earlier. He and his disabled adult son didn’t want to risk going out and contracting the virus.
“But he trusts us, and so we deliver medication to him probably every other week,” Moose said. “So it made sense that we bring the vaccine to him.”
Tripp Logan, a pharmacist in Charleston, Missouri, said one of his three pharmacies is in rural Mississippi County, which has no hospital or chain pharmacy for the 14,000 residents. There, four independent pharmacies and the county health department formed a consortium to help distribute covid vaccines.
“It started with a group text, and the next thing you know, we’re vaccinating hundreds of people a week collectively,” Logan said.
Because pharmacies can make up to $70 per covid test and $40 for each vaccination,  many pharmacies are earning new revenue to offset some of the retail losses, said Owen BonDurant, president of Independent Rx Consulting in Centerville, Ohio.
“So that has brought a significant increase in profit margins for the short term,” BonDurant said. “Covid has probably saved a lot of pharmacies. Because PBM pressure has been so hard, especially on some of these rural and inner-city pharmacies, a lot of them still are on the verge of going out of business.”
The cash infusion from the federal Paycheck Protection Program also kept many pharmacies afloat, and allowed some to make investments that better position them for the future.
“We would have had to shut down or sell because the PBMs were brutal last year, and they killed off a lot of our friends in Wisconsin,” said Dan Strause, president and chief executive officer of Hometown Pharmacy in Madison, Wisconsin. “Without the PPP, there would have been far more facing the same fate.”
Some of the changes born of necessity could stick. In a recent survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association, 3 in 5 community pharmacists said they expect more pharmacies to offer point-of-care testing after the pandemic, and more than half said additional pharmacies will give immunizations.
Hashim Zaibak, CEO of Hayat Pharmacy in Milwaukee, said his pharmacy is considering testing for the flu, strep and hemoglobin A1C levels for those with diabetes, and it will continue providing vaccinations.
“Those changes are here to stay,” Zaibak said.
Tobin’s owners considered selling their pharmacy, but finding no buyers, they shut down for good in September. Schultz said it’s unclear whether they could have survived had covid not happened — or if the vaccine revenue might have helped. He knows of two other independent pharmacies in Wisconsin that closed in the past 18 months.
“The real crux of the matter is you’re getting paid, in some cases, $60 under the cost that we end up paying for the medication,” he said. “How do you justify that portion of your business?”
Oconomowoc has one independent drugstore, two grocery store pharmacies and a Walgreens to serve its 17,000 residents. But Schultz worries about many of the older, sicker customers who relied on the personalized care his pharmacy provided. One of his former pharmacists now works at a drugstore outside of town but delivers medications to some of Tobin’s most vulnerable former customers on her way home.
“She just didn’t think they would survive going someplace else,” he said.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
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stephenmccull · 3 years
Text
Covid Shot in the Arm Not Enough to Keep Pharmacies in Business
Tobin’s pharmacy and department store had already stocked its shelves with Easter and Mother’s Day items last spring, and the staff had just placed the Christmas orders. The shop in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, had been operating on a razor’s edge as retail sales moved online and mail-order pharmacies siphoned off its patients. It was losing money on 1 out of 4 pill bottles filled, so the front of the store, where it sold clothing, cosmetics and jewelry, had been compensating for pharmacy losses for years.
Tumblr media
This story also ran on Fortune. It can be republished for free.
“And then covid hit,” said Dave Schultz, who co-owned the store with his brother. “And that was the final straw.”
The covid-19 pandemic sank many businesses in 2020, particularly those relying on in-person sales to stay afloat. For pharmacies — especially independent pharmacies — the pandemic lockdowns exacerbated long-standing economic pressures. Many small owner-operated pharmacies adapted quickly, delivering their traditional amenities in safer ways or capitalizing on new services created by the pandemic, such as covid testing and vaccinations. But others, like Tobin’s, became casualties of the pandemic, closing their doors for good.
It’s too early to quantify just how many pharmacies succumbed to covid and assess how patients will be affected. The total number of pharmacies has declined less than 1% over the past five years, as pharmacy chains get larger while independent community pharmacies — often the last place left to fill a prescription in some small towns — go under. The Rural Policy Research Institute found that 1,231 independently owned rural pharmacies, about 16%, closed for good from 2003 to 2018, well before the pandemic pinch. And according to the Drug Channels Institute, after five years of declines, the number of urban and rural independent pharmacies dipped below 20,000 for the first time in 2020.
Revenue from covid testing and vaccinations may help keep some independents afloat, but that comes with added costs and logistical challenges.
“Pharmacies are struggling,” said Harry Lattanzio, president of PRS Pharmacy Services, a consulting firm in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. “We’re getting calls from a lot more pharmacy owners that want to sell their stores. They’ve had enough.”
Most pharmacies, he said, saw a decline in prescriptions last year as customers hesitated to visit their doctors for anything but emergencies. That drop in business also meant fewer sales of over-the-counter medicines and ancillary items sold by the stores. Meanwhile, pharmacies had to buy protective equipment to keep staffers and customers safe and beef up their technology to address the new reality.
Lattanzio said some independent pharmacies, which had always preferred the personal touch of having staff members answer the phones, have had to invest in new systems to handle thousands of calls a day from people seeking vaccines. Costs rose even as revenues dropped.
“For the most part, they lost money,” Lattanzio said. “If you didn’t lose money, you did something really right.”
When Lattanzio opened his first pharmacy 20 years ago, he saw gross profit margins of 36%. Now independent pharmacies are fortunate to see margins of 3% to 5%, if they survive the pandemic at all. Much of that decline comes from the impact of pharmacy benefit managers, which manage commercial and public health plans’ prescription drug reimbursements to pharmacies. Those PBMs, often aligned with large drugstore chains, systematically squeezed the profits out of independent pharmacies. That left many smaller chains or unaffiliated pharmacies unable to bear the added hit from the pandemic.
“I’m afraid to see the outcome,” said Joe Moose, co-owner of Moose Pharmacy, a chain of seven drugstores on the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina. “The delay in payments, the increased cost to keep operating in the early days of this, combined with the fact that reimbursement is so poor already — covid may be the final nail in the coffin for some of us.”
Moose Pharmacy is trying to adapt. When it had to stop in-store purchases during the pandemic, the chain expanded curbside services and hired additional drivers. Home deliveries tripled. Workers ferried food, toilet paper, paper towels and shampoo to customers.
“We had to build out our website. We put in technology so that people could text us from the parking lot. It had to be HIPAA-compliant,” said Moose, who owns the chain with his brother. “And keep in mind that all of that is happening at no change in reimbursement.”
Covid also interrupted the medication supply chain. In normal times, the pharmacy’s supply of drugs is automated, so when it dispenses medicines, replacements show up in the next day’s delivery. But Moose and his staff had to resort to the old way of calling up five or six wholesalers to see who had the drugs in stock.
When covid testing was scarce, the pharmacies taught their employees to perform rapid tests. Once vaccines arrived, Moose sought out patients who couldn’t make an appointment on a smartphone, who couldn’t drive to mass vaccination clinics, or who were just afraid to leave their home.
Staffers delivered vaccines to one elderly man with cancer, whose wife had died a year earlier. He and his disabled adult son didn’t want to risk going out and contracting the virus.
“But he trusts us, and so we deliver medication to him probably every other week,” Moose said. “So it made sense that we bring the vaccine to him.”
Tripp Logan, a pharmacist in Charleston, Missouri, said one of his three pharmacies is in rural Mississippi County, which has no hospital or chain pharmacy for the 14,000 residents. There, four independent pharmacies and the county health department formed a consortium to help distribute covid vaccines.
“It started with a group text, and the next thing you know, we’re vaccinating hundreds of people a week collectively,” Logan said.
Because pharmacies can make up to $70 per covid test and $40 for each vaccination,  many pharmacies are earning new revenue to offset some of the retail losses, said Owen BonDurant, president of Independent Rx Consulting in Centerville, Ohio.
“So that has brought a significant increase in profit margins for the short term,” BonDurant said. “Covid has probably saved a lot of pharmacies. Because PBM pressure has been so hard, especially on some of these rural and inner-city pharmacies, a lot of them still are on the verge of going out of business.”
The cash infusion from the federal Paycheck Protection Program also kept many pharmacies afloat, and allowed some to make investments that better position them for the future.
“We would have had to shut down or sell because the PBMs were brutal last year, and they killed off a lot of our friends in Wisconsin,” said Dan Strause, president and chief executive officer of Hometown Pharmacy in Madison, Wisconsin. “Without the PPP, there would have been far more facing the same fate.”
Some of the changes born of necessity could stick. In a recent survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association, 3 in 5 community pharmacists said they expect more pharmacies to offer point-of-care testing after the pandemic, and more than half said additional pharmacies will give immunizations.
Hashim Zaibak, CEO of Hayat Pharmacy in Milwaukee, said his pharmacy is considering testing for the flu, strep and hemoglobin A1C levels for those with diabetes, and it will continue providing vaccinations.
“Those changes are here to stay,” Zaibak said.
Tobin’s owners considered selling their pharmacy, but finding no buyers, they shut down for good in September. Schultz said it’s unclear whether they could have survived had covid not happened — or if the vaccine revenue might have helped. He knows of two other independent pharmacies in Wisconsin that closed in the past 18 months.
“The real crux of the matter is you’re getting paid, in some cases, $60 under the cost that we end up paying for the medication,” he said. “How do you justify that portion of your business?”
Oconomowoc has one independent drugstore, two grocery store pharmacies and a Walgreens to serve its 17,000 residents. But Schultz worries about many of the older, sicker customers who relied on the personalized care his pharmacy provided. One of his former pharmacists now works at a drugstore outside of town but delivers medications to some of Tobin’s most vulnerable former customers on her way home.
“She just didn’t think they would survive going someplace else,” he said.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
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