On this episode of Behind Her Empire, I talked with the CEO and founder of One Potato, an organic and family-oriented meal delivery service. Catherine McCord created the business after becoming a mom and realizing there was a large community of mother's needing nutritious, quality meals — especially if their child has allergies or food-intolerances.
McCord started her career as a supermodel, posing on the cover of Vogue, walking the runway for Donna Karan and Calvin Klein and appearing in movies with stars like Matt Damon, the Rock and Jennifer Aniston. After witnessing 9/11 from a few blocks away, she said her perspective on life totally shifted.
McCord attended and graduated from culinary school, and became a food writer. She has released three cookbooks. During this time, she became a mother, and started a blog titled 'Weelicious' about her experience cooking for her son with a sensitive stomach. She said she started the blog to feel less alone in motherhood, and to connect with other like-minded mothers with similar struggles.
"You're like, 'oh my God, I know how to cook a four-star meal and I have no idea what to feed you', this tiny human. And so that was really the way that Weelicious was born, was I was just a little blog helping other moms in Facebook and in rooms. I mean, it was just really connecting with like-minded people through the education that I had received and practical experience. And it really just grew from there."
Weelicious grew into One Potato because McCord saw an urgent response from families facing a tremendous amount of stress from trying to feed their kids. She sees her goal as removing that stress and giving families the confidence to know they're feeding their children wholesome foods that meet their dietary needs.
In this episode, Catherine discusses how she pivoted from modeling to the food industry, how she became a serial entrepreneur, how she balances being a mother of three children with her work, and how leveraging community is an important part of getting your business off the ground.
"I don't think that anyone when they're like, 'I want to have a baby' realizes that it's 21 meals plus snacks, 365 days a year for 18 years. As a parent, it's the one thing you can't escape. And especially when you're co-parenting, you'll see a lot of couples and kids and parents get into these food feuds and we try to take a lot of that away, take a lot of that stress away." —Catherine McCord
Catherine McCord is the CEO and founder of One Potato, and the author of "Weelicious: One Family, One Meal," "Weelicious Lunches" and "Smoothie Project."
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dot.LA Engagement Intern Colleen Tufts contributed to this post.