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Community Corner

ShopRite Partners with Local Fitness Club to Help Customers and Associates Meet Health and Fitness Goals

Joseph Family Markets, owner and operator of the ShopRite in Canton, is excited to partner with Michele Welcome-Pellegatto and SNAP Fitness in Avon for an exciting fitness-oriented nutrition program. The program highlights “Michele Approved” foods throughout the store, and includes a “Michele Approved” grocery shopping list to help customers, clients and associates locate the most nutritious foods to complement their lifestyles and fitness routines.

While the partnership is particularly timely for New Year’s resolutioners, the program has been in place for several months, and emphasizes the importance of living a healthy lifestyle every day.  To help educate customers and expand their nutritional horizons, Welcome-Pellegatto will be hosting a series of food demonstrations at the store, highlighting specific foods on her list, their nutritional value and cooking tips and recipes. Welcome-Pellegatto’s choices include more “exotic” foods like chia seeds, amaranth and ezekial bread in addition to more traditional items such as sweet potatoes, pumpkin and lentils.

“As a fitness coach and personal trainer, I often find the hardest thing for my clients to change is their nutrition. You can spend hours in the gym, and it’s not going to change you. It’s what you eat that changes you,” Welcome-Pellegatto said. “I, along with ShopRite’s Registered Dietitian, Angie Corcoran, are trying to take the confusion out of what is healthy and make it easy for people to make the best choices for their bodies and lifestyles.”

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The partnership is an exciting collaboration for both locally-owned and operated businesses, and it was these hometown roots that brought the two together.

“As a business owner myself, I wanted to work with ShopRite because it is a family business. I’m very passionate about keeping things in the community and truly appreciate what the Joseph family does. We are both proud to support businesses that are locally owned and family run,” Welcome-Pellegatto said.

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Chuck Joseph, President of Joseph Family Markets and Owner of the ShopRites in West Hartford and Canton echoes Welcome-Pellegatto’s sentiments about the value of being a locally owned and family operated business. “We are proud to work with SNAP Fitness in this capacity. The partnership between a grocery store and a fitness studio just makes sense. We aim to help our customers, associates and neighbors eat well and be happy, and we know that fitness plays an important role in a healthy lifestyle. The more resources we can offer along those lines, the better,” Joseph said.

Welcome-Pellegatto will be at the ShopRite of Canton throughout January demonstrating unique recipes that highlight some of the foods on her list. A recent pumpkin-almond butter demonstration was a huge hit with customers, and the ingredients in the slightly sweet, protein-packed snack surprised many. “I want to introduce people to foods that they may have never heard of or dared to try. I want to change the way people approach nutrition and fitness and make it easy for them to have a healthy relationship with food,” she said.

For more information, please call the ShopRite of Canton at 860-693-3666 or SNAP Fitness at 860-581-4014. You can also find both organizations on Facebook: facebook.com/josephfamilymarkets and facebook.com/SnapFitnessAvonCT


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