Soraya is an Orlando hospitality professional with a passion for, you guessed it, mushrooms! While she's always been a fan of the herbal arts, her interest in mushrooms for wellness started in 2018 during the initial gourmet mushroom farming days of Nearby Naturals. As a mushroom farmer, she found herself consuming a bit of her own harvests every day. When she noticed positive changes in her mood, focus, and overall health, she buckled down and started researching. Four years later, she's the head of Nearby Natural's wellness program, product development, customer service, and fulfillment.

After graduating with a degree in food safety and restaurant management and a culinary arts degree from Le Cordon Bleu, Sam and his wife, Soraya, started a pop-up restaurant in Orlando, FL. A client requested a mushroom heavy menu and to his utter horror, there was no high quality fungi to be found in Central Florida! Sam and Soraya knew that they had to step up and fill that void. After loads of research and planning, Sam lead the cultivation of over 1,000 weekly pounds of wholesale mushrooms to over 70 restaurants and theme parks in Central Florida. Nowadays he assumes the roles of sourcing, logistics, social media, product R&D, and making stupid jokes.

Alex's experience with large e-commerce companies has given Nearby Naturals a unique advantage in connecting with mushroom-lovers across America. Alex lives with his family in one of the mushroom capitals of the world, Thailand. While Nearby Naturals sources all mushrooms from the USA, living in Thailand gives Alex a unique perspective on the industry. With such fungi-abundance in Thailand, he's motivated to encourage and contribute to the domestic mushroom industry in his home country, the USA. His acumen in the digital space has contributed a great deal to the transformation of Nearby Naturals from a local farm to a nationwide online outlet.