This story is part of a series spotlighting the contributions of Black Portlanders to the regional economy. The Business Journal is profiling one Black-owned business a day through February. You can read the coverage here.
Ingrid and Wade Adeogun were inspired to launch their line of sustainable bamboo toothbrushes by Ingrid's work as a dental hygienist and the common use of disposable plastic. Wade's career as a senior manager with PwC gave them a grounding in running a startup and Panga was born.
Ingrid Adeogun is CEO of Panga and Wade Adeogun is operating officer. The married couple's ambitions to provide eco-friendly everyday dental care tools have been helped by some key partnerships in the past year.
Company name: Panga
What it does: Makes environmentally friendly bamboo toothbrushes and dental care devices
Founded: 2019
What was the genesis of Panga's sustainable dental health products?
Ingrid Adeogun: Being in the industry and seeing the amount of plastic waste that goes with each patient that we see. Usually after a dental cleaning, you'd go home with a goodie bag, with a toothbrush, floss or other aids and they're usually made of plastic. And when we did go and try to find alternatives on the market, not being truly satisfied with what I saw. And thinking how can we change the space in that way where we're using sustainable materials but also coming up with products that are safe and effective for your mouth.
Wade Adeogun: My value add to the business was looking holistically at the structure of our entity, doing some research on what products, based on Ingrid's feedback, consumers want to see. How do we structure our legal entity? How do we position ourselves with a strong a strong positioning in the market?
Where are your products available now?
Ingrid: We've been in New Seasons with one of our products, but they've just onboarded all of our products. So that's super exciting. We're also in Anthropologie, sustainable marketplaces, such as Hive, Thrive Market, and some local mom-and-pop shops throughout Portland as well and throughout the country.
Wade: Obviously, we're looking for introductions to get into places like Fred Meyer. They have such a large footprint in the Portland metro area, and if we were introduced to getting our products into them, we could see a reduction in the amount of single-use plastic.
As a new company, were there state or local resources you found useful?
Ingrid: The folks that Built Oregon have been amazing, Mitch Daugherty and Rick Turoczy. And Stephen Green with PitchBlack has also been really instrumental. We went through the accelerator program, and that was very helpful in just navigating entrepreneurship and plugging us in with different people that would really help us going forward. I feel like there could be more intros or visibility on funding for minority companies. I think we don't hear about that enough and I wish there were more.
Wade: And to add on to that, I think one of the gaps that I've so far seen is the state's interaction with minority businesses and sustainability. You know, there's a lot of talk around sustainability. But how do we make sure that the resources earmarks from the state are available?
An earlier version of this story misstated Wade Adeogun's occupation outside of Panga.
