Food and beverage event Roux Portland is teaming with small business nonprofit Xcelerate Women on this year’s event to support the nonprofit’s work supporting women and gender-expansive business owners.
Roux Portland is slated for Oct. 11-17. The event features a marketplace of local food and beverage makers including many who are part of the Xcelerate ecosystem, panel discussions and, for the first time, a citywide exploration of women-owned food and beverage businesses.
Proceeds from ticket sales for events and select sales at certain businesses will benefit Xcelerate, said the nonprofit’s Executive Director Abby Guyer.
“Our focus is empowering women to define success on their own terms,” said Guyer. “When you create a healthy business ecosystem where women can succeed you create a healthier ecosystem that benefits everyone in the end.”
Xcelerate Women offers direct services for business owners such as one-on-one coaching, peer mentorship and support connecting with other resources in town to address specific needs.
Last year, the group provided mentoring and coaching to 181 women-owned businesses that collectively had revenue of $26.9 million and employed 537 Oregonians, according to an Xcelerate impact report.
The largest industry category of that total was food and beverage, both from restaurants/bars/cafes and consumer packaged goods, said Guyer.
It’s this strong connection to food and beverage businesses that made the partnership between Roux and Xcelerate make sense, said Guyer. The event is organized by the production team at House of Commons.
“Roux was founded in 2019 to create a space that elevates the voices of women and underrepresented communities in food and beverage,” said Jenna Winkler and Delia Tethong, co-founders of Roux in a written statement. “After years in the event and hospitality scene, it was clear we needed something different — something that truly celebrates the incredible women in our industry.”
The Roux MRKT is slated for Oct. 12-13 at the Goat Blocks and will features more than 50 women-owned brands such as Freeland Gin, Mate Party, Pistakio and Kachka Dumplings.
The first panel discussion is Oct. 13 and will discuss starting, growing and scaling a food, beverage or consumer packaged goods brand. Panelist include Maya French of Happypop and Jing Gao of Fly by Jing. The second panel is a happy hour about connecting cultural heritage to CPG product development and business growth and will include Sandra Arnerich of Renata and Holly Ong of Sibeiho.
New this year is an element of the event meant to drive traffic to women-owned businesses, said Guyer. A free, public dynamic map of women-owned businesses will be available on the Roux Portland website to help people find participating businesses that will have menu specials, collaborations, custom cocktails or other special items for the event.
It's free for businesses to participate and for the public to find the map.
