Health game changer: Aimee Marks, TOM Organic

Photography Julian Kingma

Managing director and founder of organic personal care products company TOM Organic, Aimee Marks started her business only four years ago

Today, the 27-year-old health changer discusses what inspired her start and her visions for the future.

The inspiration behind TOM Organic

In year 12 graphic design class, Marks was briefed to design packaging for a product that hadn’t changed in more than 10 years.

“I saw an opportunity to better communicate the products I saw in the feminine hygiene aisle of the supermarket. Typing out the ingredients list, I questioned the synthetic ingredients tampons are made from and the plastic they’re wrapped in. After uni, where I studied a bachelor of business, I knew I wanted to start a tampon company.”

That, coupled with the sense of a business’s impact on the environment, sealed her mission to deliver the best possible product for women at that time of month. So TOM Organic, which uses chemical-free organic cotton in its tampons and pads, was born. But the idea was as much for global impact, too: “For every woman TOM touches there are kilos of pesticides not sprayed on cotton. Our tampons are biodegradable, so that’s landfill that [won’t] pollute for generations to come.”

Starting up

“My friends were travelling the world, and I was on the phone to microbiologists about chemicals in tampons!” Marks was 23 when she started TOM. “I had to make compromises. My friends were travelling the world, and I was on the phone to microbiologists about chemicals in tampons!”

She raised the start-up investment by working part-time and with the help of a family friend, and TOM went to market in 2010, initially launching into pharmacies and health food stores.

“That was the training ground for the first 12 months, to research and develop the product. It’s important to make mistakes in a smaller arena first, where there’s less risk.”

One was launching into a pharmacy chain with an exclusive agreement for the first six months, which closed half its stores three months into the contract. When TOM launched into major grocery stores ethical investment house Small Giants came on board with financial backing. “Now, every decision we make has to flash through the specific values we believe in.”

Dr Ginni Mansberg: "Break the taboos on periods, tampon use."

Lessons in success

• Have a unique message. “Sometimes it’s the simplest ideas and thoughts you feel are missing from your daily life that need to be fulfilled. Don’t be shy to fulfil that.”

• Create something tangible that people can access and consume. “The images and words in the wellness industry are great – but are they accessible in our everyday lives? There’s a real opportunity to get out there and create something.”

• Relationships and people are everything in business. “It’s challenging to conform to the rules to get your product into the mass market, but even with the major players, you’re still dealing with human beings.”

What I wish all women knew…

“We use more than 12,000 tampons in a lifetime. They are in contact with the most absorbent part of our bodies – it just makes sense to use the purest organic cotton in such a sensitive area.”