Margaret Rudkin began baking bread in 1937 for her youngest son Mark who had asthma and was allergic to most commercially processed foods. Her son's doctor recommended it to his other patients and encouraged her to bake more bread. Her first commercial sale was to her local grocer in Fairfield, Conn., Mercurio’s Market. Margaret's husband Henry, a Wall Street broker, began taking loaves of bread with him to New York to be sold in specialty stores. She moved the growing business out of her kitchen and into her garage, then into a factory in 1940. Rationing during World War II forced her to cut back production due to the restricted availability of quality ingredients. In 1947, Margaret opened a modern commercial bakery in Norwalk, Connecticut, and soon after added plants in Illinois and Pennsylvania.