FAIRVIEW HEALTHWISE CLINIC OPENS IN LUNDS UNIT

KAREN RAUGUST

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Lund Food Holdings, Edina, Minn., opened last week the Fairview Healthwise Clinic in its Lunds Uptown store, located in south Minneapolis.

The launch represents one component of a wide-ranging partnership between Lund and Fairview Health Services, a health care provider operating hospitals and clinics throughout Minnesota.

"We're looking to provide health services to the community in our grocery store environment," said Russell T. (Tres) Lund, president and chief executive officer of Lund Food Holdings, who jointly made the announcement at the opening on Sept. 11 with Bill Maxwell, chief executive of Fairview Health Services.

The 3,300-square-foot clinic offers alternative health services including physical therapy, massage, chiropractic, Feldenkrais movement therapy and educational programs on nutrition, stress management, exercise, and relaxation. Some of the seminars will be run by staff members from Fairview's year-old Mind Body Spirit clinic, the first of its kind in the state and a partnership with the University of Minnesota.

The Healthwise clinic is adjacent to Lund's Living Wise Center, which merchandises products associated with the company's whole-health program, Living Wise. The department's health and beauty products, pharmaceuticals, books and videos are supplied by a for-profit subsidiary of Fairview, a nonprofit organization; it also includes an assortment of personal development items and earth-friendly products for the home. The clinic, Living Wise Center and a juice bar operated by Minneapolis-based Sola Squeeze together take up the entire 4,000-square-foot second floor of the 25,000-square-foot Lunds store.

Living Wise products, including Fairview's health and beauty care and pharmaceutical items, are available to date in four of Lund Food Holdings' Lund's and Byerly's outlets, located in the Twin Cities suburbs of Maple Grove, Minnetonka and St. Louis Park, as well as Uptown; Uptown is the first outlet to house a clinic. Living Wise, which involves products and services in a variety of categories merchandised throughout the store, including natural and organic foods, will eventually roll out to all the company's seven Lunds and 11 Byerly's units in the Twin Cities area.

Fairview funds the clinic and its services and retains clinic revenues, while acting as a third-party supplier for health-related products; the two organizations partnered on the lease improvements for the space. Lund and Fairview will work together to market the clinic. "We're planning some joint promotions to go after both our consumer bases, which have significant overlap," said Barb Gilliland Nye, Fairview's vice president of marketing and public relations.

Tres Lund pointed out that the partnership between the two companies "is interrelated and symbiotic," involving many facets, with more elements of the alliance to be announced in the future.