Welcome!
I’m Jodi, the Founder of Cherry Valley Organics. It’s nice to meet you, and I’m so glad that you are here.
On this page, you'll learn a little about my story and CVO's beginnings.
Our Story
Since a woman never reveals her true age, let’s just say that the Cherry Valley Organics’ story began many decades ago when I was a regular kid growing up in western Pennsylvania.
From a very early age, I knew that I was sensitive to synthetic chemicals in perfumes, shampoos, soap, cleaning products, paint, just about anything. When I encountered these odors, I would start to feel light-headed, nauseous, and I would get the worst headaches. I could not be around any of these products for more than a few minutes without feeling the effects.
Maybe that’s why I loved spending so much time outside in nature where the smells of flowers, trees, herbs, and animals never seemed to bother me.
In high school (in class and on the debate team – yes, I was sort of a nerd back then, and maybe now still?), I started to learn about our environment and the issues we all face, including indoor & outdoor air quality, water pollution (much of which comes from conventional agriculture), climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, deforestation, natural resource depletion, waste management and I could go on. I also learned about the people side of these issues - the politics, environmental inequalities, and of course, stewardship.
I went on to study biology and environmental science in college, and it was during this time, that environmental concern and a commitment to make things better not just for myself, but for everyone, became rooted (note the appropriate plant pun) in my core beliefs.
In my early 20’s, I became committed to a better way of living – one that was healthier for us humans and more respectful of our environment.
Although not widely available yet, buying organic foods and lifestyle products, as well as biodegradable plant-based cleaners, was starting to become an option here in Pennsylvania, and I was all in. I was also making my own soaps, teas, lip balms, salves and just about any other product I could think of for my own household use.
I read books like Sharing the Harvest by Elizabeth Henderson and The New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman and I was completely hooked on growing food. There was nothing that would stop me from starting my own Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project. And so, I did. From just a quarter acre backyard in a Pittsburgh city suburb, the earliest version of Cherry Valley Organics was born in 2001 with our first ever CSA.
In 2004, Cherry Valley Organics officially moved to our main farm in Washington County, PA, just slightly south and west of Pittsburgh. Over the decades, there have been many different iterations of our product offerings – vegetables, cut flowers, edible flowers, berries, herbs. If a plant could be grown in PA, we probably grew it (at least for a short while)!
Although I had been making my own bath & body products for nearly a decade for my own personal use, our herbal teas and bath & body product lines were officially added to Cherry Valley Organics’ product offerings in 2010, truly bringing me full circle to that young woman finding her passion around organics.
I am proud of our commitment, today and always, not only to organic agriculture, but also to producing high-quality, organic products for healthier living that keep sustainably a priority for our production process, our ingredients, and our packaging.
While we have primarily served the southwestern PA region over the years, I am so excited to expand our e-commerce reach now and in the future by shipping our healthy, organic products all across the U.S.
As a woman-owned business, I am endlessly grateful for your support on this wild and adventurous journey.
I hope you are as excited as I am to see what the future holds. Thank you for being here!
Jodi