Sydney’s Health Market: Good Food, Good Advice

By Dan Nygard
Contributing Writer

On a Saturday visit to the new location of Sydney’s Health Market, my interview with Stephanie Engel and Darby Smith, proprietors, was frequently interrupted by a steady stream of shoppers. For example, two thirty-something women in Ray-Bans who would only identify themselves as “happy customers,” each bought two-armsful of organic and gluten-free.
One of them had a carton of eggs, from chickens raised without any hormones or antibiotics, allowed to roam free, and fed food that chickens naturally eat. “Would you like to try some?” she asked her friend.

“Okay!”

The two then spent the next three minutes eagerly discussing how to carry eggs home sans carton. I tried to offer my own suggestions, but this reporter was, sadly, ignored. Both women, sharply dressed, whom one could easily imagine driving twin Priuses to their villas near River Oaks Park, had become avid food junkies in the two months since the opening of the new Sydney’s location just off the interstate in South Moorhead.

This new location, and a new focus on a store that sells not only gluten-free products but a wide selection of organic foods, is the product of a recent partnership between Sydney’s founder Stephanie Engel and Minneapolis transplant Darby Smith.

As Smith explains, Sydney’s began when Stephanie Engels’s daughter, Sydney, was born with celiac disease, which affects the small intestine and causes an inability to absorb gluten, a protein commonly found in wheat, rye and barley, “And she found that hardly any [gluten-free] food was available in the region,” Smith expains. Prior to her daughter’s birth, Engel describes herself as “a typical American consumer.”

Yet due to the immense difficulty in finding gluten-free food at grocery stores, Engel decided to leave her career teaching preschool in order to start her own business selling gluten-free products. Though celiac disease causes many difficulties in our society, Engel demonstrated, early on, an ability to make something good out of a bad situation. “It’s a really cool story,” Smith adds.

Smith arrived as a Bismarck-born-and-raised Minneapolis veteran, after calling the store, formerly located in a small, hard-to-find location in North Fargo, prior to his move. Though many stereotypes (hippie! granola-head!) exist concerning those who choose to buy organic and health-related foods (just ask my in-laws), Smith dispels these quickly by his appearance and demeanor; a former National Guardsman, Smith is the type of guy one would expect to see at a bowling alley or golf course; he eschews pretense in a disarming way. Smith and Engel have been planning this next step for “nearly a year.”

What separates Sydney’s from the typical “natural” section at Cash Wise or Hornbacher’s is a commitment to food-related knowledge and service. Nothing in the store appears without undergoing a stringent screening process based on Engel and Smith’s research-based knowledge, which weeds out the “natural” poseurs from the real foods, which are free from what Smith matter-of-factly calls “poisons.”

The knowledge base is one of the main factors behind the recent success of the new Sydney’s. The store carries a selection of food literature, in addition to connected laptops focused on customer research of the products being purchased. If any customer has a question concerning a product, it is eagerly addressed, and suggestions are not only taken but asked for at the register.

This is a new venture; fresh produce is arriving each day, but as of today a customer looking for fresh cucumbers and apples will be disappointed. And the most popular item, Crystal Ball Farms non-homogenized milk, cheese and butter is rarely in stock as demand has far outpaced supply (TRY IT—it’s like the scene in “Ratatouille” when the grizzled old critic has one bite and is taken back to his childhood).

Despite these issues, the good qualities far outpace the bad ones in here, and the customers are clearly happy to have found a store that combines good products with great customer service. “It’s great food…and a healthier market, with great customer service,” says Jeff Duerr, clearly taken aback just a little by a reporter approaching him while he shopped for dinner.

Nosy journalists and supply issues aside (hell, it’s a good problem for a new business to have) Sydney’s is clearly filling the same niche for South Moorhead that Tochi’s does for North Fargo.

Sydney’s is located on the Southeast corner of I-94(Exit 1A) and 8th St S, in the Southmoor Shopping Center, between Snap Fitness and O’Leary’s Grill & Pub.

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If You Go

What: Sydney’s Health Market
Where: 810 30th Ave S, Moorhead
When: M-F, 9-7; Sat 9-5; Sun 10-4
Info: 218.233.3310