We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zoe Marshall Nares a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Zoe , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

Soon after March 2020 the world of restaurants/Bars was shut down due to the pandemic, with no knowledge of when things may get back to normal, if ever. Both my business partner and I have spent a large part of our lives working in hospitality, it’s apart of who we are and knowing our friends and colleagues were in a troubling and uncertain time we made the decision to start a small initiative the “Local Love Project” to give back to bar/restaurant staff. Our business has been built on the support and love of the bar/restaurant world, with the uncertainty of when they would be seeing their next pay check we started donating 100% of our profits from home deliveries back to bar/restaurant staff, raising over $15,000. We started this initiative to help our colleagues/customers in an uncertain time, what came out of this was so much more than we ever expected, we came out of this with a stronger belief in our selves and our community. Our customers believed in our vision, they placed their online orders to help support their neighbours and help them through a very difficult time. Our Stock and Row community became so much stronger because of this.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Zoe Marshall Nares, I am the co-founder of Stock and Row Cider, we are a Craft Cider company based in Blomfield, Prince Edward County. With a background in restaurants and wine I started working for a Craft Cider startup in Toronto, when they sold to a larger beer conglomerate a friend and I knew it was time to try something on our own. I went to Oregon to take a Cider making course with Peter Mitchell, spend over a year at a friends apple orchard learning the ins and outs, all while testing out different recipes of Cider in hopes of finding our flagship product. We thought at the time that there was a lack of low sugar, full flavour Ciders being offered in the market and set out to create the best options possible.

In 2020 we planted our Apple Orchard and opened our tasting room on our Farm where you can sit in the courtyard and enjoy a variety of low sugar full flavour Ciders while overlooking our Cider Orchard and Vineyard. Our Farm is a labour of love, with 16 different apple varieties and 3 grape varieties all planted by hand, we are proud to be able to grow and take care of this land.

As we were building our company one thing was clear to us, we wanted to support local, on every one of our cans you will see our tag line “local love”, we are committed to using 100% Ontario Apples in every one of our products, as well as working with local growers and farms for fruits we use in our Farm Series. We are committed to supporting local businesses and organizations and are grateful for the support we have received from our local community.

Im very proud of what our small team has build and continues to build every day, starting a company during a pandemic is not an easy feat, our resilience, passion and determination to be better everyday continues to propel us forward and help Stock and Row grow to new heights.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The Obstacle Is The Way- Ryan Holiday

The book draws its inspiration from Stoicism, the Ancient Greek philosophy enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. This book shows you how some of the most successful people in history have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents or luck.

This book and the lessons shifted my vision and beliefs, it helped me become a more resilient and focused leader.

I would also recommend two of his other books- Courage Is Calling and Discipline Is Destiny

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe what helped and continues to help us build our reputation in our market is – we are real people who make real products. We are in a market saturated by Big Brand products that are made with flavourings and water, supported by millions of dollars of marketing. I believe who we are and the thoughtfully crafted products we make continue to build our reputation and help create devoted customers to our brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stockandrow.com
• Instagram: stockandrow
• Facebook: Stock+Row