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Local demand doesn’t automatically create a viable local business. Alaska’s small mushroom industry is a surprisingly good example of why.

Every product that has to travel thousands of miles to reach an Alaska customer carries more than its purchase price with it. There’s freight, time, inventory risk, weather, handling, and the possibility that one disruption somewhere along the route turns into a much bigger problem by the time it reaches the end user. On the North Slope, that equation gets even more complicated. Industrial operations need enormous amounts of equipment, materials, fuels, and chemicals to keep

Finding Alaska-made products for a store, restaurant, school, visitor center or corporate purchasing program should be easier than it is.

One of the easiest mistakes a growing product business can make is knowing exactly what it costs to make something and still not knowing what it costs to manufacture it profitably.

“Are there grants for this?” is one of the first questions many manufacturers ask when they need new equipment, want to add capacity or are ready to bring a new product to market. The honest answer is: possibly—but probably not in the form you are imagining. There are very few grants that simply give a business money to start or grow. The U.S. Small Business Administration states directly that it does not provide general grants for starting or expanding a business. Most legit

There are things you can learn about working on Alaska’s North Slope from a manual. Then there are the things you learn after you’ve actually spent years out there. You learn what the ground is telling you. You start recognizing which vegetation points to different conditions underneath. You know when something that looks perfectly reasonable on a map might be a bad idea once you’re standing there. You understand why a small decision about where or how you travel today can cr

Ask what Alaska produces and most people immediately think of oil, seafood and timber. Those resources are important—but they are not the whole manufacturing story. Alaska companies manufacture food and beverages, industrial equipment, environmental monitoring technology, building products, outdoor gear, apparel, personal-care products and much more. Some serve customers within their own communities. Others sell throughout Alaska, across the country and internationally. Here

Manufacturing growth doesn’t always begin with a factory, a large piece of equipment, or a major capital investment. Sometimes it begins with one product that needs to work. For Alaskan Dream Botanicals, that starting point was personal. Renee Behrendt was dealing with a sulfate allergy and couldn’t find products that worked for her, so she and her husband, Jared, began making their own. What started as a solution to a very specific problem slowly became a business built arou

Alaska employers talk a lot about workforce shortages. We need more operators. More technicians. More people who understand industrial systems. More workers who can step into complex environments and keep things running. That part is familiar. What gets less attention is what has to exist before those workers can ever show up. Training programs need equipment. They need instructors. They need current technology. They need students who know the careers exist. And they need emp

Alaska spends a lot of time talking about what businesses need in order to produce more: equipment, processing space, reliable energy, workforce, freight, and access to capital. All of those things matter, and in a state where nearly every input is harder or more expensive to secure, they matter a lot. But eventually every producer runs into another question that is just as important: What happens after we build the capacity? How do we help enough people want the product? Tha

Freight conversations in Alaska usually start with cost. How much does it cost to move something? How much more is that than the Lower 48? How much of the final price is freight? Those are important questions, but they’re not the only ones.

A halibut caught near Savoonga has value the moment it comes out of the water. But that value can grow depending on what happens next.

When Alaska’s original infrastructure was built, we were learning in real time what it meant to build at this scale in this environment. We know more now. The question is whether we’re using it. The recent Port of Alaska settlement gives us a pretty painful example of what happens when a major infrastructure investment doesn’t perform as intended. Anchorage and the federal government first agreed to improvements in 2003. Damage was identified in installed sheet piles by 2010.

When an Alaska-made product sits next to something produced much more cheaply somewhere else, price isn’t always where the local company wins.

Alaska does not need to invent demand for maritime work. The vessels are already here. Fishing boats. Ferries. Research vessels. Coast Guard assets. Commercial operators. Workboats supporting ports, communities, and industry across the state. All of them need maintenance. All of them need repair. And over the course of their lives, all of them generate millions of dollars in fabrication, machining, electrical, mechanical, coating, inspection, and replacement work. The questio

Alaska leaders are again debating the state’s future energy supply as Cook Inlet gas becomes more constrained and expensive. The proposed North Slope pipeline is being positioned as one possible long-term answer, moving gas hundreds of miles south to serve Railbelt utilities and potentially support a larger LNG export project. From a manufacturing perspective, the supply question matters. But supply alone is not enough.

When a community says it needs a processing facility, we should ask what is creating the bottleneck.

When Alaska talks about infrastructure, the conversation usually gets big very quickly. Ports. Roads. Bridges. Power generation. Transmission lines. Multimillion-dollar projects designed to move people, freight, energy, or resources across enormous distances. Those investments matter, but they aren't the only kind of infrastructure that can change what is possible in an Alaska community. Sometimes it looks like a greenhouse. Earlier this month, agricultural leaders from acros

If Alaska wants more manufacturing, the conversation cannot begin and end with factories.

A multibillion-dollar project does not automatically become a multibillion-dollar opportunity for Alaska businesses.