Platinum Business Insights

A Silver Lining to
This Pandemic Year

By Steve Coleman, Partner

We are feeling new life as green is budding out. Eagerness to hug our loved ones brings tears of joy after so long being isolated by social distancing. We are coming back together. Even with economic disruption and COVID-19 these past 12 months, we are learning new ways to live more humanely.

Enduring the losses and stresses of the pandemic has oddly, for many of us, been combined with newly granted abundances—a silver lining shining through winter clouds.

While more than an eighth of our population suddenly lost their jobs by this time one year ago (and thankfully, 49 percent of them were re-employed as of last month), an even greater share of our population has learned new ways of doing their work. Businesses that were local or regional have expanded to a national or global scale through virtual delivery of services and products. Many of us are pivoting into new roles, jobs and businesses. Government funding to replace income in lieu of employment has been unprecedented.

We have more time in our weekdays given we spend none of it commuting. Families are sharing meals more regularly than in a generation. Millions of people are now doing walk-and-talks each day. Pet ownership – and time that can be devoted to pets – is at an all-high. Bike, boat, and other recreational equipment sales have reached new highs, indicating increased enjoyment of the outdoors and recreational endeavors. The inability to travel, enjoy sporting events... MORE

Bushel Boy President Chuck Tryon on Growing Beyond Tomatoes

Owatonna, Minn.-based Bushel Boy is well known in Minnesota for first perfecting indoor grown, vine-ripened tomatoes available in local grocery stores year-round 41 years ago. Competition has increased rapidly in recent years, leading the company to both expand production and explore other crops to produce indoors, beginning with... MORE

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