Carrie Ozog, born and raised in McHenry, spent nine years in Colorado building a business delivering frozen, organic and plant-based food to customers on the Western Slope.

She came back to Illinois in 2024 to be closer to family, including her daughter, Saige Alexander. Ozog restarted her Colorado business, Mindful Roots, in McHenry, delivering foods to customers in McHenry, Lake and parts of Cook counties.

Now, customers can also pick up less-than-minimum orders at the duo’s sister store, Rooted Ritual Apothecary, 1309 N. Green St., McHenry. They opened for business on Feb. 8.

In addition to picking up their frozen food orders, customers can shop for handmade beauty and home products, refillable personal care and cleaning supplies, home decor and more.

“It is a storefront that offers sustainable, non-toxic health and beauty products,” Ozog said.

Having both the food and the eco-friendly and sustainable goods at one location was designed “to make it easy and convenient” for customers, Alexander said.

Their foods, offered at mindfulrootsliving.com, include overnight oats, muffin tops, soups, sauces and sourdough bread. All of the foods are “husband- and kid-approved,” Ozog said. Customers can add their own animal proteins to the dishes at home too.

In addition to products they are selling, via wholesale, in the store, Ozog and Alexander are are working with six vendors who lease space to sell their wares.

One of those vendors is Jodi Stone of The REfill Shed. The local company offers bulk, refillable goods - shampoo and conditioner, body wash, lotion and soap – and is one of the McHenry Riverwalk Shoppes stores for 2026. The shops are set to open for the season on May 1.

Customers can bring in their own containers to fill, or reusable containers are available for purchase at the store, Ozog said.

What their products do not have are phthalates, Alexander said.

According to the National Institutes of Health, “phthalates are a series of widely used chemicals that demonstrate to be endocrine disruptors and ... can be found in most products that have contact with plastics during producing, packaging, or delivering.”

Alexander said she began researching alternative products about two years ago.

“I’ve been using nontoxic [products] at home, because of my health issues” adding she’s gone through a lot of trial and error to determine what products caused issues for her, and which ones helped.

She stands by those products, too. “I like to get ready and do my hair. I didn’t have to give that up” by switching products, Alexander said.

No grand opening date has been set, with Ozog noting that so far it’s been “a very soft opening.”

They do plan to add classes too, once space in the basement is ready.

“We will open our basement for educational classes on health, with a huge list of speakers,” she said.

Ozog will also do a class on sourdough. Her sourdough starter came from a friend in Colorado and is claimed to be 182 years old, passed down for generations.

The store currently is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 11 and to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Once “shopping season” starts later this spring, they plan to open additional days, Ozog added.