He shopped for better and cheaper insurance coverage, and instituted a self-insurance health plan to retain workers who had never had benefits before. He began by getting rid of staff members who didn?t want to change their usual way of doing things. So Howard put his accounting degree and minor in business administration to work to try to make Jandi?s profitable. When Howard started working at Jandi?s in 1992, the deli was losing an average of 12 cents on the dollar, and the rest of the store wasn?t doing much better. But from a profit standpoint, ?The deli turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing,? Howard says. She decided to expand the store, moving down the block to a 1,700-square-foot location and adding a deli. In 1984, Irving died, and Judy was left to carry on at Jandi?s alone. On a weekly basis she would be crying, saying she didn?t know how the store would stay open the following week.? ?Still, I don?t know how she made ends meet exactly. ?My mom and dad weren?t business people, but my mom has a huge heart and is amazing with people, so that?s how they brought customers in,? he says.
Howard remembers that from the beginning, Jandi?s-an abbreviation of Judy and Irving?s names-didn?t make money. Howard was 9 at the time, and his brother Myles was 7. So Judy and Irving leased a 900-square-foot space in a strip mall and opened one of Long Island?s first natural foods stores. She asked my mom, ?Why don?t you start one of those stores-you know, one of those health food stores? Then, says Howard, one of Judy?s friends pointed out that many of the stores Judy was looking at had a ?healthy twist. She looked at dessert food franchises, but none really appealed to her. ?We didn?t really eat healthfully at home,? their son, Howard, recalls.Īll Judy knew was that she wanted to own a store.
They weren?t even that dedicated to natural and organic foods.
They didn?t come from a grocery background: Judy worked as an executive secretary, and Irving was a salesman for a women?s sleepwear company. When Judy and Irving Chasser started Jandi?s Nature Way in Oceanside, N.Y., in 1976, they weren?t typical health food store entrepreneurs.
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