Nude Foods Market offers healthy food, healthy packaging – BizWest

BOULDER — At Nude Foods Market in Boulder and Denver, the food is, well, nude. And so is the packaging.

The food is fresh, healthy and free of chemicals, preservatives and additives — plus, it’s packaged in glass jars, replacing the harmful plastics found in traditional packaging methods. 

“If you want to eat well and eat in a way that is supportive to the environment, it’s almost impossible to know how to do that in today’s food system,” Nude Foods CEO and co-founder Rachel Irons said. “It really shouldn’t be. It should be much easier to feed ourselves well.”

Irons cofounded Nude Foods Market with Verity Noble and Matt Arnold right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. They wanted to sell environmentally conscious, zero-waste food in reusable and returnable packaging free of harmful plastics. Plastics break down into micro-plastics and get into food, air and water and cause health, environmental and other problems. 

“COVID really shaped the company a lot, actually in a good way,” Irons said. “We had to put everything in glass jars.”

Arnold, who is no longer actively involved, offered up space in one of his commercial kitchens in Boulder, but the space wasn’t in an ideal location. The founders began remodeling the dining room of a former fine-dining restaurant to turn it into a traditional bulk grocery store but had to stop work during the pandemic. They pivoted to zero-waste deliveries in July 2020, using glass jars and making the trips via bicycle, operating out of the partially remodeled restaurant space. They put up a website and organically grew their customer base, continuing with their plan to open a zero-waste grocery store once the pandemic lifted. 

Nude Foods Market’s first location opened in Boulder in December 2021, with the products packaged in glass jars, as well as bags and egg cartons, for easier shopping. 

“We found a new location in Boulder that’s better for retail and that has a production space in the back for jar filling, jar washing and some food prep,” Irons said.

Nude Foods Market opened a second location in Denver in April 2024, and Irons and chief marketing officer Noble plan to open three more locations over the next five years as they continue to grow their inventory and product selection. They sell more than 1,800 items at their two stores, and they are planning to build a second location in Denver and stores in Arvada or Westminster and in Fort Collins, plus relocate the Boulder store to a more-centralized location. They also operate a delivery service in Boulder, Lafayette, Louisville, Superior and central Denver.

Currently, production is attached to the Boulder store, but Irons and Noble hope to build a larger distribution center and invest in machinery to automate the filling processes. They operate two filling machines and are crowdfunding to purchase machines that can fill delicate and liquid products.

“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to shop in bulk,” Irons said. “We do all the research for you … so you don’t have to worry about so much junk in your food. It’s all clean, and it’s all healthy. You’re also supporting really good products as well.”

Irons and Noble source 40% locally produced food, stocking everything that would be found in a regular grocery store from organic produce to dairy, grass-fed beef and dry goods, as well as chef-prepared meals made in-house.

“They’re all organic and all free of preservatives and free of seed oil,” Iron said. “They’re super nutrient-dense, all fresh food and no extra packaging.”

Customers pay an extra $1.50 for each jar of food they purchase, receiving $1 back if they return the jar, with a 50-cent cleaning and refilling fee included. Or they can bypass the jar fee with a $15 monthly membership.

“Our biggest success is how happy our customers are,” Irons said. “It’s such a need, and there is a void — people really don’t want plastic in their lives, and they want to support local. It’s validating doing something people really want.”

There’s been a few challenges, though, particularly because the grocery store business and working in food in general is tough, Irons said. She and Noble have to work with several vendors to source their multiple products, instead of working through a distributor. They also found a way to package and shelve the products to preserve quality, while stocking the items customers want. 

“It’s hard to get people in the door, so we need to figure out how to better communicate what we do,” Irons said. “We’re really trying to have everything you would have at a regular grocery store but better for you and better for the planet.”

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