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Wisconsin exporters describe challenges, strategies for continued growth
7 Nov 2025
News
In a recent conference panel, three Wisconsin exporters said the uncertainty created by recent rounds of global tariffs is complicating their efforts to expand. Speaking at the 2025 Wisconsin Economic Summit, held in Green Bay in mid-October, representatives of the three companies shared challenges encountered and lessons learned in selling their products—ranging from ginseng and lip balm to fitness equipment—into overseas markets.
Planning for an uncertain future
Jonathan Dudzinski, co-founder of Bee Bella—an organic lip balm company based in Oshkosh—described the difficulty his company faced in finding the bamboo tubes they used for their lip balm from a source not based in China. “We tried to find suppliers outside of China. We worked with one who said they could do it,” he said. But the tubes ordered through that supplier wound up containing bamboo sourced in China, anyway—and were therefore subject to the same tariffs.
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