Organic Garage unveils rebrand and new name
Organic Garage Ltd. has a new origin story.
The Toronto-based parent company, which owns the Organic Garage grocery retail banner, has changed its name to Oragin Foods Inc. The move comes on the heels of the company’s recent acquisition of plant-based cheese company Future of Cheese.
Oragin has plans to rapidly grow the CPG side of the business with a big focus on the U.S. plant-based and retail market, under a newly formed CPG division. The company also plans to continue the expansion of Organic Garage under its retail division.
“As a publicly traded company, we’re interested in shareholder growth and we feel there is room for a tremendous amount of growth on the consumer packaged goods side,” said Matt Lurie, president of Oragin, in an interview with Canadian Grocer. “We saw that first hand with the acquisition of the Future of Cheese and the interest in what we’re doing with it.”
However, Lurie said it was difficult acquiring and growing businesses under the Organic Garage parent company name because of people’s lack of clarity about the company. “We realized we needed to restructure things to make the messaging clearer for those who are looking at our company,” he said.
As for the choice of the new name, “origin,” of course, is the point or place where something begins.
“We looked at that word, specifically in regards to what we’re doing not only in our retail division with Organic Garage but our CPG division with Future of Cheese and other companies we’ll be looking to acquire. [The name signifies] this is where it starts, so to speak,” said Lurie. “We feel the name is very telling and having a slight twist on it makes it memorable.”
The Oragin logo has a sprout to signify growth and the company’s focus on being green—namely in the organic, plant-based and wellness space.
On the retail front, Lurie said the company was “aggressively active in the real estate market” and believes Ontario can support 25 to 30 Organic Garage locations.
“From a consumer perspective, organic, wellness, plant-based and all-natural are the highest-growing categories in the grocery space,” said Lurie.
People are coming out of a pandemic where health was a big deal and people don’t want to get sick. They want to make sure they’re eating better and staying healthy to be the best versions of themselves.”
On top of that, people want to save money given today’s rising inflation, and Organic Garage is positioned as a value player. “Everybody wants to save money, and so with the model and the offer we have, we’re able to deliver everyday savings to people,” said Lurie.