How MOM's Organic Market Started As A Home Delivery Service
On July 2, MOM's Organic Market posted on Instagram a picture commemorating the 35th anniversary of the brand's existence. Well, sort of. MOM's Organic Grocery started as an organic carrot delivery service run by the founder and CEO Scott Nash from his mother's garage.
Talking to Baltimore Magazine, Nash recalled that the first push towards opening a business was his father's death when he was a teenager, stating: "There was pressure for me to work. My mother was reeling from my father's death, and she started charging me rent." So, he began working for an organic wholesaler and later a shipping business. After a few years, he took these experiences and an initial loan from his mother to open his garage-based organic food delivery business.
This background of working one's way up to owning a chain of stores has influenced Nash's outlook. Specifically, as he explained in Newsweek, he disagreed with the elimination of estate taxes. "Eliminating the estate tax underscores the Republicans Party's relentless dedication to the interests of the wealthiest Americans," he wrote.
Mom's shadow looms large
Besides lending him $2000 to buy his original stock of organic produce, Scott Nash's mother has informed the outlook of MOM's Organic Market by influencing Nash's outlook. When Bethesda Magazine asked him how he had come to hold clean food and the environment as core values, Nash responded that he was raised with those values. He suspected his mother had really wanted him to work with nature somehow. At any rate, they spent a lot of time hiking and loving the outdoors.
Even the organic part of MOM's Organic Market came from home. According to an interview with New Hope, the Nashs went organic in the eighties, when organic food hadn't yet achieved its mainstream status. "I came from a family of early adopters; it was part of our culture to be interested in things outside of the mainstream," commented Nash. While his parents made an effort not to force Scott into adopting their outlook, it is pretty clear that his upbringing contributed to him running a successful chain of organic grocery stores.