Rodale's General Store is located in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. Stop by to browse the selection of Rodale books at bargain prices, holiday gift items, organic floral arrangements, baked goods, and more.
Hi, I'm Jim Sturdevant, managing editor of the publishing executive magazine. We are here in Emmaus, Pennsylvania at the Rodale General Store. I have Heidi Rodale, the general manager here with me. Heidi, I wanted to ask you why did you decide now would be a good time to open a retail operation and what does it do for you in your hometown of Emmaus? I've been thinking about doing this for a while for a couple of years, but we didn't have the right location. And finally this building, which is on the corner of our main campus, became available for purchase. It was an old, ugly landscaping business and I had a vision to create something beautiful here and turn it into our store with selling books and magazines and some of our food products and bringing other things that people in the community might find interesting. Our corporate headquarters is not open to the public and we wanted to create a space where we could let them come in and learn a little bit about our history and our story and who we are. So it allows you to interface with the community. Do you get people coming from farther afield as well? We do. We're going to be opening this Saturday from the first Saturday. A lot of people have been asking for that because they can't come from the week. So we'll see. It's going to be interesting. So what do you think the store says about the Potlodeale and about your brand but just about your mission and what you really think you're putting out there for people? It shows our passion for our products. The main products are men's health, women's health, runners' world bicycling, gynecartening. A lot of people in Canadians are passionate about that too. Coming in and pick up information. People are not tired of books. We've been selling lots of books. It's great to see people wanting information. Sure. Well, I was going to say, I think maybe some people think of you as a book publisher and some people think of you as a book publisher. So this is a nice opportunity to remind everybody that you're very much good. Thank you.