Market of Choice CEO Rick Wright (Courtesy Market of Choice)

Rick Wright, CEO of the Oregon-based grocery chain Market of Choice, died Sunday. He was 62.

Wright, who lived in Eugene, led Market of Choice for decades, transforming his family’s small grocery operation into a regional brand, operating more than a dozen stores across Oregon. The company’s most recent store opening was in Hillsboro earlier this year.

According to the company, Wright grew up in Cottage Grove working in a small band of grocery stores owned by his father, Richard Wright Sr.

Wright took over the company after his father’s retirement in 1997. He noticed shoppers who frequented both natural food stores and convenentional grocers each week. Wright wanted to bring the two ideas together, he told KLCC’s Oregon Rainmaker’s podcast in 2022.

“Along the way, I came up with this idea of ‘Market of Choice,’” Rick told the podcast. “We didn’t know that was going to be our name at the time, but we knew that there was this hybrid concept of bringing in a lot of local products, a lot of organics and naturals, but having some of them side-by-side with conventional products and putting them all under one roof.”

That approach worked, and the grocery chain soon expanded its in-house offerings adding a rotisserie oven to the store’s kitchen, which his father initially questioned.

“When we opened the store, people fell in love with it,” Rick told KLCC. “They’re seeing things being made. My dad fell in love with it. His next comment was, ‘When are you going to put one in every one of our stores?’”

Wright also helped develop programs like MOJO and Dig Local, which support Oregon-based small businesses and local farms, the company said.

No cause of death has been released.