I bought jars of baby food to feed my first child when she was ready for solid foods. Being that we were raising her as a vegetarian, the selection at the store was limited with the same boring types of vegetables and fruits. Then I started making my own baby food with a wider variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Hey, I thought, I should start a business specializing in vegetarian baby foods! However, due to a multitude of reasons, the biggest one simply being the lack of time, I didn’t.
If you are an eco-conscious new parent, I bet that you have had moments where you thought, “hey, I should market this product or idea!” The saying “necessity is the mother of invention” takes on a whole new meaning.
Take, for example, one mom’s determination to provide her kids with the most natural and earth-friendly foods she could find. This led her to open a grocery store specializing in organic foods. Diane Shaskin is a co-founder (her husband is the other co-founder) of Planet Organic Market, Canada’s largest all-natural food retailer. Since opening in 2001, she now has nine supermarkets across Canada.
And what about Jem Terra, who was concerned about the beds that her children were sleeping on? She simply wanted to find mattresses and bed linens that were naturally hypoallergenic and that didn’t contain any potentially harmful chemical flame retardants. Mattresses made with natural latex rubber and organic cotton linens were her solutions and now she owns a business selling them.
Success stories like these are inspirational in the traditional business sense but they are also inspirational in that green “mom”trepreneurs are helping to build a new foundation for Canada – one that takes care of the Earth as well as our economy.
