Business

Across the U.S., a growing number of new retailers are selling mostly in bulk to customers toting reusable containers.  Tare Market's...

This story appeared in the Feb. issue of Oregon Business Magazine .  In November of 2022, Thor Mikelic was working on social marketing...

From growing kelp forests to making packaging out of mushrooms, these companies are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from every angle.  I wrote this round-up for Inc.'s Carbon Neutral package, in the May/June 2022 issue .  Entrepreneurs coast to coast are coming up with innovative technologies showing not only that we can live without carbon-based energy, but also that we can thrive without it. From a Maine startup that's growing kelp forests (which can sequester gigatons of

I wrote about Ridwell, the Seattle startup that's building a business around collecting all the old batteries, clamshell containers and...

As Covid-19 approaches the two-year mark, Solace Cremation has turned out to be a service for the modern age—a web-based business that offers a safe and remote experience while allowing customers to smoothly organize a loved one’s cremation. Based in Portland, Ore., with operations in Seattle and Southern California, Solace handles the entire process almost completely online.

This story appeared in Inc.'s October, 2021 issue, as part of the Female Founders 100. Most jeans manufacturers rely on petroleum-based dyes and pollutants. Tammy Hsu and Michelle Zhu are on a mission to revolutionize the industry with planet-friendly, microbe-based dyes. Michelle Zhu (left) and Tammy Hsu run Huue, a startup developing sustainable textile dyes to replace the ecologically destructive colorants the fashion industry uses. About 20 percent of the world's industri

I wrote this feature about Portland-based startup MilkRun for Businessweek's food issue.  Julia Niiro on her farm in Canby, Oregon When...

I've long been intrigued by people who have unconventional jobs. You know, the guy who makes robotic dinosaur models for museums , or the duo who composes the music for the Daily podcast. So it was fitting when my Inc. editors gave me a new column: Who Does That?  My first subject, in the May/ June 2020 issue, is none other than Tyler Malek, the flavor whiz at Salt & Straw. (If you're not familiar with Salt & Straw, it's the Portland-based ice-cream company known for flavo

I wrote this story for Reasons to be Cheerful, David Byrne's new online magazine.  As fake meat floods the market, some fast-food joints...

My husband and I have been car-free for a decade, and one of the things that made this lifestyle possible was the existence of car2go, a...

Back in July, I reported on the Phylos Bioscience saga for Wired .  When Mowgli Holmes and his childhood friend Nishan Karassik founded...

This story on the evolution of Heath Ceramics appears in the July/August issue of Inc. Mention Heath Ceramics  to design nerds or  high-end restaurateurs , and chances are they'll fawn endlessly over its retro, midcentury tile or brightly glazed stoneware. Heath devotees are nothing new: Since visionary ceramicist Edith Heath and her husband started the company in 1948, enthusiasts have included architect Frank Lloyd Wright and chef Alice Waters. Yet the company likely woul

I wrote a Destination guide to Miami's startup scene for the July/August issue of Inc .  A vibrant immigrant entrepreneurial scene and a...

I wrote an insider's guide to Denver's start-up scene for the March/April issue of Inc.   See here for the online version .  Many are...

The guy from K9 and Red Heat now sells the strain smoked on Saturday Night Live back in the 1970s in Portland. The first time Jim Belushi smoked cannabis, he was a teenager in Wheaton, Illinois. “It must’ve been really good pot because I don’t remember,” he says. He does remember being busted twice for marijuana by Wheaton cops. “One time, it was marijuana. One time it was what we called Indiana ragweed. It wasn’t even weed. It was  weeds!” What a difference 45 years makes. B

Lisa Sedlar, founder and CEO of Green Zebra, an Oregon-based healthy convenience store chain  I wrote about Green Zebra for Inc. Green...

Turns out, there's lots of money to be made by servicing the companies that are growing and selling legal weed.  I wrote this piece for...

Love the Wild's clever packaging. The delicious sauces are frozen in the shape of hearts.  I must admit: as an Oregonian who has subscribed to a wild salmon share for the last 3 years, I'm not a fan of the idea of farmed fish. I had this naive and outdated notion that all fish farms are crowded, dismal places, teeming with sea louse. In 2010, I had read in Paul Greenberg's book  Four Fish, The Future of the Last Wild Food that farmed salmon had a terrible feed-to-conversion

I wrote about Ben Jacobsen and his Oregon-harvested artisanal sea salt for Inc.'s May issue .  Netarts Bay, a protected estuary on the Oregon Coast, is an ideal spot to harvest salt.                While attending business school  in Copenhagen in 2004, Ben Jacobsen fell in love with Maldon sea salt, the flaky finishing salt prized by chefs. Returning to the United States--landing in  Portland, Oregon --he was shocked to find that no one here was harvesting anything like that

Every so often an assignment comes along that takes you out of your typical beat, making you so honored to be a journalist because it...