Posted on Sun, Mar. 04, 2007 - "Reprinted with permission of the Miami Herald"

D'LITES EMPORIUM

Specialty diet shop featuring new discovery

D'lites Emporium, still going strong with diet-product sales after 25 years, is now finding success with its latest line, Moscow Meltdown.

BY JENNIFER COHEN
Special to The Miami Herald

It was a chance find. Susan Corsover, co-owner of D'lites Emporium, was attending the Fancy Food Show in New York in July to look for new products to sell in her Plantation store.

D'lites sells specialty diet foods, so most of the offerings were not of interest to Corsover. But then she noticed one booth with a Russian diet product among a variety of other food items from around the world. The Russian representative, Mikhail Yusim of Royal Sweet B.K.R., spoke only broken English. Although all of the packaging was in Russian, Susan brought some of it home.

The diet product turned out to be the Moscow Meltdown, a new diet program. It features portable food packets that, when mixed with hot water, are advertised as helping to stimulate metabolism, reduce appetite and promote rapid weight loss.

Scientists in Russia originally created the products for the Russian army, Corsover said. When the troops returned, they reported they had lost weight while still keeping their energy up, she said.

''This guy clearly did not belong at this particular food show. Finding this product was a total coincidence,'' said Jerry Corsover, Susan's husband and co-owner of D'lites.

As a result of the happy accident, D'lites is now the exclusive distributor of the Moscow Meltdown in the United States.

''We are always on the lookout for the next big diet trend,'' said Jerry Corsover.

Since opening its doors in 1982, D'lites has provided dieters and nutrition-conscience consumers with diet products.

Renisha Glinton, 36, of Lauderhill, has been a D'lites customer for years. She was on the Atkins Diet and searching for low-fat, sugar-free ice cream when she found D'lites.

''I stopped doing Atkins but I keep coming back to D'lites about once a week to buy ice cream,'' she said, adding her favorite flavors are orange crème, Snickers and Irish coffee.

A regular dieter, Glinton tried the Moscow Meltdown for 21 days and lost a dress size.

''I went from a size 9 to a 7,'' she said. ``I also learned to eat less.''

The Moscow Meltdown is packaged as a five-day program, with instant meal packets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and sells for $49.99. Meals consist of soups, mashed potatoes and buckwheat. Consumers can also buy packets individually.

''You get to eat. This is not just a liquid diet,'' said Glinton, who especially likes the mashed potato meals. ``I felt satisfied. I was surprised.''

The program also has drinks, including two types of coffee. One is said to burn fat whie the other reduces appetite.

The D'lites concept was created after Susan Corsover had her own health troubles.

In 1978, at the age of 31, she had her first of three open-heart operations. Deciding to take full advantage at her ''second chance'' at life, she began exercising, eating healthier and gave up the sweets and fatty foods she loved. But she couldn't do without the one thing she craved -- ice cream.

She searched for a fat-free, cholesterol-free ice cream that tasted like the real thing, but never found it. So she created her own and opened D'lites with her husband, who still works in the store every day.

''Our products must be what they say they are,'' said Jerry Corsover. ``Many of our customers are diabetic, have heart conditions or have special food requirements such as no salt or sugar. We are not here to fool anybody and we are not about to jeopardize anyone's health. We tell it like it is about the products we sell.''

After 25 years, D'lites is still going strong. ''We have always supplied products for customers for all of the many diets,'' said Jerry Corsover. ``We've seen Atkins, The Zone, South Beach Diet, Weight Watchers -- we've gone through all of them. We think the Moscow Meltdown will revolutionize the diet industry.''

D'lites is at 8251 W. Sunrise Blvd., Plantation. For information, call 954-340-1131, e-mail info@dlites emporium.com or visit www.moscowmeltdown.com.