BUSINESS
SCOTTSDALE PROGRESS | WWW.SCOTTSDALE.ORG | APRIL 3, 2022
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Seattle bakery pops into Scottsdale for a day BY ALEX GALLAGHER Progress Staff Writer
F
ormer residents of Seattle or those who have traveled there can rejoice as one of the tastes of The Emerald City will be popping up in Scottsdale on Sunday April 6, when Piroshky Piroshky arrives with its famous handheld delicacies. However, there is a catch. Those interested in purchasing piroshkies – handheld pies stuffed with meats, cheeses and myriad fillings – from Piroshky Piroshky need to place an online pickup order by tomorrow, April 4, and all orders must exceed $50. This is because Piroshky Piroshky will be baking all of its piroshkies at its home shop at the Pike Place Marketplace in Seattle before freezing and shipping to the parking lot of Trevor’s Liquor on April 6. “In order for me to bake piroshkies fresh from scratch outside of Washington State – where I am licensed to do it – I would have to go through all kinds of licensing
Piroshky 1: Part-time Scottsdale resident and owner of Piroshky Piroshky in Seattle, Olga Sagan will bring the famed handheld pies to a pop-up event held outside of Trevor’s Liquors on Wednesday, April 6. (Special to the Progress)
procedures,” said Olga Sagan, the owner of Piroshky Piroshky, who splits her time be-
tween Scottsdale and Seattle. “Because this is prepaid and pre-ordered
and it’s a business-to-consumers operation where we’re the ones delivering it, we’re able to find a solution to deliver our product to consumers without going through the hardship of extensive licensing.” Although Seattle is her home base, Sagan felt the strain of the pandemic as downtown and tourism dropped. “We were 100% retail-oriented so when the pandemic hit, our sales dropped to 90% – which caused a shock to the system,” Sagan said. “We felt the impact strongly because we didn’t have a strong neighborhood presence because then the office workers stopped coming downtown and the tourists disappeared.” Unsure of how to keep her 30-year-old business running, Sagan had an idea to bring her food around the country. “Some of the businesses decided to slow down and ride the wave but we went the opposite direction in figuring out how to bring our product to the people if they
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Scottsdale shop offers ‘molded’ hearing aids BY ALEX GALLAGHER Progress Staff Writer
H
earing loss is often a tough thing to deal with and an even tougher thing to seek help for. To help make things easier, Beltone West co-owner Kory Castro in Scottsdale has begun selling hearing aids that look nothing like conventional devices and can take 3D scans of patients’ ears to make molds for hearing aids. “In the U.K. there’s a government program where people can receive hearing aids for free but they still have the same acceptance rate and market penetration as the United States,” Castro said. “For some
Kory Castro
reason, it’s not the cost that’s keeping people away, it’s something else.” It is estimated that nearly 48-million Americans suffer from hearing loss, according to hearingloss.org. Castro believes that of those 48 million, a low number accept the fact that they are losing their hearing. “We have fit about 20% of the population that needs help with their hearing,” he said. “The rate of acceptance is pretty low.” Of those accepting the fact that they cannot hear well, Castro says that roughly 20% of teens have reported some sort of hearing loss. “Our average patient is around the mid60’s age but there are younger people who
are identifying that they have issues hearing mostly from noise exposure,” he said. The drop in age can be attributed to several factors, according to Castro. “With people going to concerts, listening to music and wearing headphones constantly, as time goes on the average patient age will drop down,” he said. Because of this, Castro invested in inventory and became the first supplier of self-fitting Jabra branded hearing aids that were approved by the FDA in late February. “With the Jabra device that is targeting people who are about 10 years younger than the average patient that we see,” he
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