Local skincare brand lands deal with Market 32/Price Chopper
- Nicolle Mendoza
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Skin Deep Naturals, a skincare company, is the latest local business to be stocked at Market 32/Price Chopper stores in the region.
The company, owned by Octavia Maxwell, has products available at 10 Market 32/Price Chopper stores, including in Albany, Troy, Rensselaer, and Clifton Park.
Maxwell has owned Skin Deep Naturals for almost a decade. She makes all the body butters, scrubs and other skincare products herself.
Skin Deep Naturals' first retail location was Honest Weight Food Co-op. By 2019, the products were available in 10 stores. But the Covid-19 pandemic caused some of those retailers to close, and Maxwell was back to having product only at Honest Weight.
Maxwell started to plan her rebound. She met with Sam Trimboli, director of shopper experience research for Market 32/Price Chopper, earlier this year.
"We did have a conversation in our initial meeting ... about us being in more stores because we dwindled down to one store. They're like, 'Well, Price Chopper wants to see that you're in more stores and that you're active.' So my plan this year, I was just going to get my stuff into more stores," Maxwell said.
Maxwell received a grant from local nonprofit Business for Good Foundation, which allowed her to create a professional product catalog to bring to pitch meetings. She said that helped the brand add four more stores to its retail presence.
Skin Deep Naturals' partnership with Price Chopper is part of the grocer's "home.grown." initiative, which brings local entrepreneurs' products to grocery store shelves. Earlier this year, another Capital Region entrepreneur, Kizzy Williams, struck a deal with Price Chopper to sell prepared portions of her restaurant's mac and cheese in 21 stores.
Trimboli said Skin Deep Naturals fit what customers were looking for — especially during the holiday gifting season.
"What I was seeing from the research that I do is that connection to the local community means more than sometimes just a traditional sponsorship — it's actually partnering with local suppliers, local artisans and producers, and then bringing that into our stores," he said. "It's checking multiple boxes. At the end of the day we're a grocery store. It has to be something that makes sense in that context. But really it's something like this that's a little bit more specialty. It aligns with what customers are looking for."
Skin Deep Naturals became available in Market 32/Price Chopper stores on Small Business Saturday (the Saturday after Thanksgiving). Maxwell made more than 1,000 products for the holiday season and tabled at all participating stores throughout December to educate customers about the product. Price Chopper provided signage for those in-store events, Trimboli said.
Maxwell said the company's sales grew about 25% between 2024 and 2025. Her goals for 2026 include continuing her partnership with Market 32/Price Chopper and adding more stores to her distribution.
"Having those partnerships really allows small businesses like myself in the area to really grow and expand and to also learn ... who the real client base is and how to be a better business." Maxwell said.
In the future, she hopes to hire full-time employees. Maxwell runs the business in part out of the STEAM Garden, a business incubator on Central Avenue in Albany.
For Price Chopper, Trimboli said there are plans to grow the "home.grown." initiative.
"It is something that we are putting actual, real thought and resources towards and figuring out how we can make this a little bit more scalable," Trimboli said. "We have the privilege of being headquartered right here in the Capital Region. Most, if not all, of our major competitors can't say the same thing. So really, we've been trying to lean into that a lot more and develop those relationships and see what we can bring to life."