Natural Products takes a first look at Brompton Health Quarter, a sassy new health and healing centre on one of London’s smartest shopping streets.
The Brompton Quarter in upmarket Knightsbridge is a fascinating retailing concept. It’s made up of a trio of stores on a corner of Brompton Road offering an all-day brasserie serving fresh, sustainable food, a vibrant grocer with a strong organic offer, and – most recently – Health Quarter, a health and healing centre with a mission to “exude wellbeing in the community”.
Health Quarter opened in January this year. Originally the brainchild of Brompton Quarter founder and restaurateur Doron Zilkha, the store is managed on a day-to-day basis by nutritional therapists Rosie Millen and Claire Harper.
The pair are both graduates of the Institute of Optimum Nutrition and their knowledge and enthusiasm is immediately evident when you arrive at the store. When Natural Products visited last month Rosie Millen – pictured below – was busy giving two customers an impromptu consultation on nutrition and beauty issues (the store offers longer, booked consultations outside shop hours).
When she has finished – and completed a very useful sale – Millen explained the thinking behind the Health Quarter approach. “It’s very much based around a holistic approach to health and wellbeing. And our big point of difference is that everything we do here is underpinned by expert nutritional advice. Although our main product offer here is premium nutritional support products and natural beauty ranges, we encourage our customers and clients to see them as sitting alongside healthy diet and lifestyle choices.”
Millen says the product mix is deliberately high-end. “We want to offer high quality products in both the nutritional and beauty categories. We’re looking for the very best quality ingredients, and with supplements we’ll favour practitioner brands where there is a good history of use and research evidence to support them.”
The store design has a shabby chic aesthetic that combines modern lines with traditional furniture in an ivory and sage green colour scheme. It’s the perfect setting for the premium brands that Health Quarter favours. On the beauty front that incudes Pai, Alva, Lavera, Dr Hauschka, Terre D’Oc and Lacrème Beauté. Supplement ranges include Bio-Care, Viridian, BioNutri, Solgar, A Vogel, Patrick Holford, Allergy Research, Metagenics and Biotics Research.
Millen says that Health Quarter’s customer base is building nicely. “It’s a steady build, and week by week it’s strengthening. We’re really beginning to benefit from referrals from existing customers. I think people are really impressed with the quality of the advice we are able to give and the friendliness of the service.
“The thing that drives us and inspires us every day is that we are helping to make a difference, and raising awareness of the amazing benefits natural approaches to health and wellbeing have to offer.”
“We’re using social media, blogging and leafleting – all the usual ways of spreading the word. But in the end what we’re doing is very much about relationship building. We want to really connect with the local community and win loyal customers. And the thing that drives us and inspires us every day is that we are helping to make a difference, and raising awareness of the amazing benefits that natural approaches to health and wellbeing have to offer.”
