As Oregonians head into the holiday shopping season, new polling shows strong interest in buying American-made products.
Small businesses said demand is helping strengthen local manufacturing. Several Oregon companies are featured in this year’s “Made in America Holiday Gift Guide.”
One of them is Cycle Dog, which uses recycled materials to make pet products. It began in 2009, when its founder started making dog collars from discarded bike tubes collected from local shops, materials that otherwise would have gone to landfills. Today, the business makes its products in Portland with a team of local workers.
Lanette Fydrich, owner of Cycle Dog, said the focus on local production has been central from the beginning.
“When I started Cycle Dog back in 2009, I left my corporate job at Nike,” Fydrich recounted. “One of the foundations of the business was that I wanted to make the product here in Portland, and I wanted to hire local people to build the product. And 16 years later, that’s still exactly how we do things.”
The new Made in America Gift Guide was released with new polling showing 78% of Americans prefer U.S.-made goods, and 82% said they would choose them over similar imports when available.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing has published its gift guide for 12 years, highlighting companies from all 50 states and encouraging people to support local producers.
Scott Paul, president of the alliance, said the desire to buy American-made products remains overwhelmingly strong.
“There’s been a lot in the news about tariffs and cost,” Paul acknowledged. “But it’s striking to find that Americans still strongly value products that are made in the United States, want to seek them out, want to see more of them and feel very strongly about it.”
Paul added better labeling and increased visibility for American-made options, especially online, could help more shoppers follow through on that preference. For Oregon makers in the guide, the attention comes at a key moment for small-batch manufacturing and local job growth.
By Farah Siddiqi , Oregon News Service
