Our Story

Susan Tarpinian moved to Bowdoinham, Maine in 1978. The small, traditional New England town was a far cry from Santa Cruz, California, where she had spent the last several years working in natural foods stores and studying for her degree in nutrition. The push for local and organic foods was still in the infant stages in Maine, and Susan suddenly found herself without the foods that she loved. Determined to do something about it, she and her friend Barbara Shipley got to talking about bringing clean, natural food to the community – and the seed for Morning Glory Natural Foods was planted.

To bring her dream into reality, Susan first had to do some convincing. Not everybody was impressed by the idea of ‘natural’ foods, and she lifted many an eyebrow from banks as she presented them with a plate of dried fruit and cooked grains with the hope of getting a loan. But one bank was willing to take a chance, and after nine months of construction and planning, Morning Glory Natural Foods finally opened its doors on May 9th, 1981 on Maine Street in downtown Brunswick.

It was a tough market at first. Susan, a twenty-seven-year-old single mother, had to work several jobs to provide for her son and support her dream. As local and organic food movements began to gain traction on the east coast, Morning Glory was there to meet the demand. Customers began flocking to the store for its array of bulk foods, spices, and herbal medicines. Forty years later, Morning Glory supports a loyal customer base, a large staff, a wide variety of local suppliers, and was even awarded Business of the Year by the Brunswick Downtown Association in 2019.

Susan and her partner, Craig, have been running Morning Glory together for twenty-five successful years. They were joined in 2010 by Toby Tarpinian, Susan’s son, who got his roots in the natural foods movement as a toddler walking up and down the bulk food aisles. When asked what she loves most about Morning Glory, Susan stated: “I’ve been here forty years and never had a day where I have not wanted to come to work, even on the hardest days. I love what I do. To me, it’s not work. It’s just what I do."

As we celebrate our 40th year, check out our short video by Dooster Film!

Watch here!