NEW BEDFORD — After serving the community with healthy food options for seven to eight years, Healthy Bites Meal Prep will be closing its doors on Dec. 22.
“I feel like I’ve helped a lot of people and changed their outlook on eating healthy and lifestyle,” said Crystal Lister, who co-owns the business with her husband Jeff Lister.
Located at 804 Belleville Ave, Lister said she is closing their business due to the struggles they faced since the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing inflation.
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“We can’t raise our prices as much as inflation goes up; we take the hit, week after week, and it’s coming out of our paychecks, so we could only survive for so long,” she said.
“I wanted to bow out gracefully and do it on my own time.”
Lister also said after the pandemic, they pulled product out of a lot of the gyms as there wasn’t as big of a comeback as expected with people preferring to do workouts and alternative forms of exercise at home and alternative stuff.
“COVID just made it 20 times worse for us and we couldn’t ever get back to what it was before,” she added.
The next chapter for this entrepreneur
As she prepares to say goodbye to her business, Lister said she’s hoping to sell everything, including her equipment, as she has no plans to continue the business in another form.
“I want to get out of it for awhile and move on,” she said. “If somebody wants to take over here, with their own idea, we’re willing to sell all our equipment and supplies and stuff like that.”
However, Lister said she doesn’t see closing her business as a defeat as she already has future plans to open a boutique gym and she’s already seeking a location in Acushnet. She will serve as a personal trainer at FLY fitness (which stands for “First Love Yourself”), which will be working from a “loving your body” approach with clients.
“I’m not going anywhere, it’s just the chapter closing,” she said. “My story is not over, it’s just a new chapter beginning.”
Standard-Times staff writer Seth Chitwood can be reached at [email protected]. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.