Healthy shake and tea shop owner finds sense of community
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We are reminded every day how big the nutrition and weight-loss industry is growing in the U.S. and around the world. The commercials are always on our TVs and our social media.
According to AI Overview, the weight loss and nutrition business reached $94 billion in 2026.
And of course, one visit to the doctor is enough to make you think about life choices when it comes to your body. I'm taking the blood pressure pills, but walk to the YMCA daily in the morning before work to take a spin on the elliptical machine and lift some weights to keep a few steps ahead of the aging process.
I wasn't thinking of any of that when I decided to step inside Southwest Nutrition on Main Street for the first time on Thursday. Owner Brooke Bruner was standing behind her juice bar.
"So this location has been in Marshall for 15 years. They started down on Third Street. So I’m technically the third owner of this space. So it’s been in the community for years -- I think almost 15 years," Bruner said.
"So we’re like a healthy shake and tea shop. So we do like individual drink servings, like a healthy alternative -- kind of like healthy fast food is what we call it," she said. "But we also do like wellness coaching and that kind of stuff. So I started coming in as a customer my freshman year of college. I went to SMSU."
Bruner explained that she gained 40 pounds while attending SMSU her freshman year. She discovered Southwest Nutrition that was owned by Dan and Carrie Morisette. The Morisettes moved the store from Third Street to the present Main Street location.
"I was looking to lose a little bit of weight, so I got started using the shakes as like a meal replacement. I lost 40 pounds. Fell in love with the products, and I honestly just like love the vibe of of the club," she said.
"Come in, get an individual serving. It was just like a healthy environment. Stuck around, got my degree at SMSU in sociology, and then by the time I was graduated I was honestly just really involved with the nutrition club. I was helping coach people myself. I was selling the products, and I just absolutely loved it."
So instead of looking for a school counseling job after graduation, she decided to open up her own location in Pipestone.
Bruner called her Pipestone location Embrace Nutrition after her determination to embrace her new body and mental outlook, according to a 2020 Pipestone Star article.
Five years ago, the Morisettes were ready to move on, which opened the opportunity for Bruner to return to Marshall.
“I loved it over there (Pipestone). But like I said, born and raised in Minneota. So was my husband. We have three little kids, and we wanted them to go to school and us to move back to Minneota at some point. So when I had the opportunity to come back here, I was like, Well, door is open, so yeah, might as well take it,” she said.
Bruner explained that her business is much more than a juice bar. Bruner offers nutritional products through the network marketing company Herbalife.
"So they have everything. We help people with weight loss. That is for me how I got started. There is an entire like athletic line. So like for someone who’s going to the gym, we have like your pre and post workout. We have general nutrition. We have nutrition for like aging. We have a vitamin that my we have a like kid vitamin that my kids take every day. You know, so there’s a nutrition company that has yes, pretty much something for everybody," Bruner said.
The Herbalife products, according to Bruns, plays a big part in the weight-loss program. Besides her losing 40 pounds during college, she mentioned that the Morisettes also lost significant amount of weight through the program. She said Kari lost 100 pounds, and Dan lost 70 pounds.
There are then and now photos hanging on the wall of customers with weight loss success.
The Herbalife webpage brags $5 billion in net sales in 2025 with 6.4 million members era across 95 markets
I commented on the wide-open space in the front of the business.
"We’re open seven days a week. But then we also do workout classes. We will do like different like health and wellness challenges, accountability groups. In February, we held Galentine’s Bingo and we had like 50 women in here. You know, so we do a lot of different events like to bring another sense of community to our customers and the outside community to come into,” she said.
Bruner said it was that sense of community that hooked her into the Southwest Nutrition program.
"Like I said, I started as a customer. I was a college student looking for honestly," she said. "It was just like a really positive, like healthy environment to be a part of. Always a smile when I had walked in, and it was just always like so welcoming, like it felt like a like mini home almost for me."
She says 80% of her customers are regulars who are seeking the same thing.
"I had such a sense of community that now it’s cool because I get to kind of turn and do that in my own way,” she said.