Many people in Eldersburg already drive 30 minutes or more to find healthier fruits and vegetables, and  meats and dairy products that aren't adulterated with growth hormones.   Sure, the local grocery stores offer a few aisles of organic cereals and juices, but, try to find prepared foods or ingredients -- like chutneys, pasta sauces, and salsas made from organic produce, or chicken salad made from free-range chickens.  Soups, entrees and even full meal solutions -- ready to heat and serve -- are in high demand given the number of two-income families and single-parent households in the area, but, to buy products like those, people in southeastern Carroll County have to drive to stores or markets in Howard, Baltimore and Montgomery Counties.

In fact, other than some steretoypically-small health food stores, there really isn't a good organic market -- offering thousands of products, not hundreds -- in all of Carroll County.  We believe that means a good organic market located in Eldersburg could reasonably expect to draw customers from Westminster and even the Hampstead/Manchester area.  As Scott Nash, founder and owner of My Organic Markets ("MOMs")-- a regional chain of 4 stores in the Baltimore-Washington area put it, an organic grocery store is "a destination location ... people looking for the products sold there will go out of their way to find them ... it's not a convenience thing, it's a lifestyle."

We think Mr. Nash is right -- so much so that, for the right partner, we're prepared to help provide the necessary capital -- or to joint venture with an experienced operator -- to bring an organic market such as we've described above to Piney Ridge Village Center, the Eldersburg community and the rest of a region that easily extends at least 30 minutes beyond Eldersburg.

To download a brochure describing the opportunity to put an Organic Market in Piney Ridge Village Center, click here