Nino Booth
22nd October 1946 - 30th July 2001
Co-Founder and Former Owner of the Haelan Centre
 
As many of our regular customers will know, Nino Booth co-founder
and former owner of the Haelan Centre died suddenly, but peacefully,
in his home on Monday 30th July 2001.
We wish this part of the site to be a celebration of Nino's life and
tireless work in the wholefood and herbal trade.
When Nino first opened the Haelan centre with his partner Peter Woodhead
in 1971, there was very little understanding of what wholefood actually
was. It was an alien concept to most people, who thought that sliced
white plastic packed bread was the best thing… Nino made it his
mission to enlighten the public and introduce them to another way
of eating, another way of looking at our health and another way of
addressing the needs of the planet as a whole.
These days, concepts of wholefood and organic foods are very familiar
to us all. People are much more aware of how food affects their health;
the dangers of synthetic pesticides; the threat of genetic modification
of food; and the importance of compassion for animals in farming.
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have more members than the total
number of people who voted Labour in the last election. Organic food
and complementary health issues are regularly discussed in both broadsheet
and tabloid newspapers. Nino, and other like-minded individuals,
who used to be viewed as wholefood "cranks" chucked merrily, as they
saw the rest of society catch on to their way of thinking.
As Nino began working with the shop he realised that there were many
foods that were being put forward as "health food" which were not
healthy at all. Along with three other like-minded friends he formed
the NAHS Code of Standards for food quality. He took a close look
at the ingredients of many food lines carried by wholesalers to the
health food trade and came up with a list of questionable ingredients
- sugars, fats, refined foods and additives. Nino found that "At least
20% of all products on sale in the average health store do not meet
even the most basic definition of a health food." Their meetings were
held in the flat above where the Haelan Centre is still today.
As the friends prospered and the health food trade grew, some became
a little more flexible with the guidelines that they agreed. Nino
held out the longest - refusing to sell the now famous Green and Blacks
Organic Chocolate because it contained organic sugar. He was most
annoyed, as he really liked the chocolate and was forced to go to
a competitors shop to buy it! Nowadays, you will find the Green and
Black's range in the Haelan Centre thanks to the introduction of the
Policy about Health and Enjoyment of Life, but we are still just
as strict about keeping sugar out of our everyday products such as
spreads, yoghurts and savoury foods. The
Haelan Centre Policy Statements, that Nino set down on paper in
1999, are guidelines that we will always adhere to.
Nino was a visionary, a man with a dream that we will all, one day,
have a healthy diet. "I believe that the specialist shops of the
future will be Junk Food Shops and the supermarkets will stock only
healthy foods." He was one of the few people in the trade to feel
no threat from the supermarkets, he actively welcomed them branching
out into organics and encroaching on the health food sector. He viewed
them as helping him to realise his dream of bringing wholesome food
into the mainstream.
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