Meaningful Marketplace Podcast

Paul Fuller started Sweet Creek Foods the long way. He was looking for a job and the opportunity that popped out was refrigeration. He built a cooler for one farm, started building and installing walk-ins for other farms and continued to fix them. So when everybody got new equipment, he had to start something! He had been in the back room of all the farms and he and spouse Judy had been canning al...

Paula Phillips is President of Kombucha Wonderdrink, a 20-year old maker of kombucha "discovered" by Tazo Tea co-founder Stephen Lee when on a trip to Russia. He fell in love with the fermented tea and then discovered all the health benefits of this prebiotic drink. The prebiotic part is a vegan based fiber that complements the probiotic - good bacteria - already in the body. It's food f...

Our special guest on our Anniversary Show! Kelly and Adam Calabria co-founded Kelly's Jellies and Hillary is the official head of operations but the unofficial head of keeping the ball of yarn from unravelling. It was Great Aunt Danny's recipe for habanero pepper jelly that turned into holiday gifts. Not an easy recipe to make let alone at the commercial level, the friends and relatives raved abou...

A Portland, Oregon native, Lola Milholland's Umi Organic fresh ramen noodle dishes started with a workshop. She took a week long noodle making tour with other ramen noodle companies and was hooked on the idea of providing the best noodle making kits people could make fresh in their own homes. Most people don't realize what a creative space ramen noodle making can be. There's a limitless amount of...

It's about hospitality. Literally. The Senegalese word Teranga means hospitality and Nafy Flately imbues the word in her products. All the juices and snacks, super foods all, come from a variety of ingredients, but mainly from the Baobab tree, which is considered the "tree of life" for all the incredible levels of nutritious ingredients it offers. In Senegal, baobab is a natural remedy f...

Health issues often are the impetus for founders to look for healthy, nutritious new foods, and that is certainly the backdrop for Amy Colville's story. Going through a very stressful time, Amy started uncovering new knowledge and kept track of how certain foods were making her feel. Then she had her "aha" moment when her plant-based milk snapped her into shape almost instantly. She star...

A Farmer's Market, Portland Oregon, "neighbor with our host, Sarah Marshall, Heidi Lovig is a chef on a mission. Living in Cambodia for a few months, Heidi fell in love not only with the people, but feeding them as well. Shopping with the women, cooking over an open fire and feeding nutritious meals - especially to the children - became a special place in her heart. Returning to the Pacific N...

Fernweh (fern' way) is a German word that means a very, very strong desire to explore and experience places you haven't been to. With a background in hospitality, Ashley Lance was really groomed to help people who liked to backpack responsibly and have good meals along the way. Originally a side hustle, Ashley began making her own trail meals of dehydrated foods that were locally sourced and respo...

In some aspect of the food business since she was 12, Jami Curl and a friend were deciding what to do after college. In Ohio at the time, they read that Portland, Oregon was a place for coffee, beer and books, which appealed to her. She got a marketing background in some non-food jobs, and was baking cakes in her spare time. Jami then found her passion in baking and started looking for a space to...

Great Drinks. No Bullsh*t. is the headline on their website, and Genevieve Brazelton, founder reflects the serious "whiskey drinking friends" for whom she began developing her bitters. At this lockdown time, liquor store sales are up and this has led to a solid increase in sales for The Bitter Housewife. In addition to the bitters in the traditional bottles that add a dash to cocktails,...

Author and CEO of Urban Cheese Craft, Claudia Lucerno is enjoying families being housebound right now, because they're looking for projects and making delicious dairy and non-dairy cheese is in demand. Both food preparation and preservation are meditative processes that the entire family can participate doing. And children especially enjoy making something that is their creation and an edible one...

Salumi is Italian for deli meats. And Coro is Italian for chorus. Put 'em together and have Coro, a restaurant and deli offering the most fabulous cured meats. Using the old world methods, new world thinking and new world spices, Martinique Grigg and Clara Veniard picked up the tradition in Seattle begun by Armandino and Marilyn Batali and have grown it to the stellar establishment it has become....

Operating from their homes like the rest of the planet, Sarah and Sarah do a special show dedicated to exploring the current pandemic situation and the aftermath when COVID-19 is contained. Already, grocery stores are open, but six-foot markers on the floors and even the sidewalks outside are becoming standard. Cornell University's Risk Management List has put together the contemporary "Bible...

Christine and Michael Leoniak bring health and wellness into great tasting food. Their daughter had eczema growing up and Christine and Michael sought to cure it through food. They did. And that quest meant a lot of trial and error but ended in complete success. The family went from a healthy diet to an "extremely", and limited, diet. The balance between pure nutrition and sanity (good t...

Who can't love honeybees? Andrea Wade loves the little, hard-working creatures who produce the most natural sweetener in the world. They form the basic ingredient in her all natural, low-sugar syrups that produce some of the best lemonade you ever tasted, and give you other fruit flavors for refreshing drinks or flavor additions to your dishes. Put them in sparkling water for a drink, or on top of...

Amazi is a Ugandan name, meaning water. Water is used to grow things, and Amazi is a company that wants to grow. Get it? But why Uganda? Renee Dunn spent a lot of time in the country and after returning to the US, wanted to source food product from Uganda and sell in the US to raise economy and awareness in Uganda. Renee is a big proponent of ethical sourcing and international trade. The dried fru...

Ruby Jewel is an ice cream sandwich you can't describe in audio, it's that good. Lisa Herlinger (hard "G") is an OSU Food Innovation Center grad and started in the Food 101 program. She had always adored ice cream but didn't know how to produce it. The first season was spent selling her ice cream sandwiches at Portland's Farmers' Market. With a culinary background and experience in resta...

Sunset Magazine is so much more than a magazine - it's an American icon for living the dream. Heather Arndt, a food writer for Sunset, is a huge part of that dream. She is also the garden editor of the magazine, and a Portland, Oregon resident. With a degree in botany, Heather was writing about food and dabbling in vinegars when a call out of the blue landed her at Sunset. So - just add water and...

New Seasons Market is a specialty grocer that focuses on well sourced, quality foods with a focus on local providers whenever possible. Building trust in their stores is job one. Lori Hunter is the local founder for New Seasons, who not only sources local foods, but also puts on events for the company. Formerly with Williams-Sonoma, Lori not only has a palette, but an eye for the kitchen and what...

Hannah Catherine Kullenberg - if you are looking for her digitally - is a holistic brand maker, consultant, new product launcher and more. Her first startup company was a bean company and all that experience is now for hire to other founders. She starts with the obvious questions of her clients, "What is your ultimate dream?". She has partnered with some of her clients in the past, but n...

"The Joy of Cooking" is as close to the second Bible as it gets. Megan Scott met the grandson of the book's family business when she asked him out! The eventually married and even though her husband did not want to take over the family business, Megan got "sucked into it" as she says. Megan's background is baking, and she has added that emphasis in the recent updates of the boo...

New Jersey startup founder Jessica Craig is just now launching her seltzer soft drink, balsamic flavor infused beverage company. If you think coming up with the recipe was hard, it evidently wasn't as difficult as coming up with the name. But when they came up with Tarta, Jessica's husband goes into his "Sparta" yell! Coming from the health industry, Jessica became a Mom and decided her...

The word "Delicatessen" just isn't used enough, shorted to "Deli" and just doesn't give the importance to its original namesake. That's how Lisa Tran feels, and that's why the Tan Tan Cafe and Delicatessen is different. They make their own hams, meatballs and pates, so they are the REAL DEAL. A family operation, Lisa's parents have stayed in the same Beaverton, Oregon location...

When Matt Sutherland cooked in kitchens, he was nicknamed "Hoss" for his physical presence (Hoss was a character in the TV show "Bonanza" for all you youngsters). He decided when he and Catherine started their sauce company that he would pare the Hoss with Soss - and there you have it. Matt loves to teach others to cook as well. He teaches at the local Salem, Oregon high school...

In her late teens Josie Johnson experience a plethora of health issues that escaped the diagnosis of many doctors until Josie saw a homeopathic doctor who isolated a food allergy: Gluten. Next step, be gluten-free! But after that, how to make truly delicious, truly gluten-free food for the world? Josie decided the best way was to offer gluten-free mixes for people to cook up their own food. That d...