Terry Naturally founder and natural health pioneer Terry Lemerond dies

Terry Lemerond, the Green Bay entrepreneur, founder and leader of Terry Naturally, has died, according to a Facebook post by the company on Sept. 3. Lemerond, a pioneer in using botanical ingredients to create health products, leaves a legacy of innovation and science. He spent half a century trying to "improve the health of America," the company's Facebook post said. "Terry was our leader and mentor, but he was also so much more. He was a friend, a teacher, a storyteller, and a truly kind soul who had an incredible way of making people feel like they mattered," the Facebook post said. Lemerond founded Enzymatic Therapy, EuroPharma and the Terry Naturally. He was a retailer, formulator, author, radio host, and mentor whose career began not in a laboratory but in the back room of a small Green Bay health-food store. He bought Bay Natural Foods in Green Bay in 1969. He later said he had arrived there after a restless youth and a stretch in the Marine Corps, where a captain first walked him into a health-food store and changed the direction of his life. In high school, he had been overweight, sugar-addicted, angry, and, by his own telling, "voted most likely to go to prison." Natural foods, exercise, and botanical medicine became both his vocation and his personal reset. He sold Bay Natural Foods to his son, Brad Lemerond, in 1998. "Like many entrepreneurs, you always hope your children will develop an interest in your business and want to take over the reins," Terry Lemerond said at the time. "It's very rewarding to know the family business will continue its mission under Brad's leadership." In 1981, working from the back of the Bay Natural Foods store, he founded Enzymatic Therapy as a producer of natural medicines, nutritional supplements, vitamins, and herbal extracts. He is widely credited with helping introduce to the U.S. market ingredients including glucosamine sulfate, IP-6, standardized Ginkgo biloba, black cohosh for menopause support, and the broader concept of botanical standardization and targeted formulas. Over his career, he researched and developed more than 500 nutritional and botanical formulations. In 2000, he sold Enzymatic Therapy to a private group and accepted a mandatory retirement period and non-compete agreement. In 2003, he came out of retirement and started EuroPharma in the I-43 Business Center, first focusing on European-made natural skin-care products and dietary supplements. A chemist he recruited helped develop formulas that later included products such as SneezEze and Renouvelle. He said in a 2006 interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette that he did not consider work a burden. "I live the life. I love eating good foods," he said. In 2007, with his wife Debra, launched the Terry Naturally brand under EuroPharma, built around clinically studied ingredients and formulas aimed at specific health goals. It was located in Bellevue and later expanded to a second location in Suamico. The line became a fixture in independent health-food stores nationwide. In 2016, he converted the company into an employee stock ownership plan, passing ownership to the people who had built it with him. Ariel Perez is a business reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach him at APerez1@usatodayco.com or view his X profile at @Ariel_Perez85.