Today on The Fruitful Life, we have the privilege of interviewing a long-standing Fruitful Yield favorite: Mary! She has worked both in stores and at our corporate location in various roles. For over 20 years Mary has been a crucial part of the FY family and will be retiring at the end of the summer. To celebrate such a momentous moment we wanted to ask her a few questions about her journey with the company! Learn more about the Fruitful Journey of Mary below.

Mary in her office.

FY: Hi Mary! When did you join Fruitful Yield as an employee and what was your first position?

Mary: I started at our Barrington store in November of 1999. I was hired as a full time sales associate.

FY: What are all of the positions you have held at FY, oldest to newest? 

Mary: I started out as a sales associate, then I went into manager training and became the manager at the Barrington store in 2001 or 2002. During my time there I co-managed the Highland Park location until a manager could be found too. From there I was the store manager at Bloomingdale, S. Elgin and then went to Lombard in I believe 2005. In 2006 I started doing Category Management along with managing Lombard. I did both jobs until I was made full time Category Manager in 2009. During the years in between I also started our warehouse. I’ve been the Category Manager ever since and still run our Warehouse.

FY: It's incredible to see how your career evolved with FY over the years! What drew you to apply to Fruitful Yield? 

Mary: I had been working for a year at a small mom & pop health food store: Arlington Natural Foods. There was no room for advancement so when I saw an ad in the local paper for full-time help at the Barrington store I applied.

FY: That's understandable. What do you think makes FY stand out from the competition? 

Mary: Obviously our customer service and knowledgeable staff. Back in the day we would have up to 3 trainings a week. Some were held at Lombard while others were at local restaurants. Fruitful Yield is also very good to their employees. It’s one big family.

FY: That's amazing to hear! Do you have any favorite go-to FY products? 

Mary: One I’ve always recommended is Egg Shell Membrane. It used to be by Membrell, then Redd Remedies bought the rights. When the formula became available for other companies, NOW came out with it and my husband and I take it every day. I’m also a big fan of Kyodophilus. It was the first probiotic I took and will still occasionally go back to it..  

FY: What will you miss about the employees and work environment? 

Mary: The relationships. I’m a very people orientated person. Also, getting to know about new products before everyone else, getting excited about them and bringing them to the stores for our customers. I’ll miss the industry but have made so many friends that I plan on staying in touch with in the future.

Mary with Joe Fulco, Fruitful Yield President.

Thank you to Mary for all of her years of FY service and for taking time out of her busy schedule for this interview! We hope you enjoyed learning about The Fruitful Journey of Mary.