Made In Columbia

By John Littell

Columbia is famous for producing shiploads of college graduates, but there are more tangible products being made in town — some of which may have slipped below your radar screen. Here’s a look at three local entrepreneurs who have bet the farm they have something you want, need and are willing to buy.

Dr. Hana’s Nasopure System

Your nose blows. It also sneezes, itches, tickles, drips, stuffs up, and, in some cases, begs for rhinoplasty. This is one talented organ that is more than just a handy place to perch your reading glasses. In fact, it is the body’s first line of defense against pollen, dust, mold, pollutants, bacteria and viruses.
And who would know more about runny noses than a pediatrician? In this case, Dr. Hana R. Solomon, a University of Missouri School of Medicine graduate and recently retired from her practice at the Solomon Family Medical Clinic in town. She has invented “the modern neti pot.”

Aladdin’s Lamp

OK, just what the heck is that? Well, it’s a device that has been used by Buddhist monks for more than 2,000 years to clean their nasal passages and sinuses, thus insuring a clean nose so they could inhale deeply.
This irrigation system, unfortunately, has its faults. “A neti pot, which looks like an Aladdin’s lamp, is totally based on gravity,” Solomon says. “You fill it with whatever concoction you want, then you hold it over your head, bend at the waist, and twist your head to let the solution flow through the nasal cavity.” It sloshes around up there before it drains out when you stand.
“Patients for the first 15 years of my practice confirmed all the studies showing neti pot users got infected less often, used less medication, and came to see me fewer times,” she says. “But most of them said, ‘Hell, no. No way I’m doing that.’ ” She discovered the two big objections were “the inconvenience factor and the yuck factor.”
Improvements were needed in the delivery system and Solomon set out to make them.

Safari

But first, let’s safari up the nasal passage with gun and camera to find out what’s lurking there. Basically, the nose is a filter lined with a thin layer of mucus, tiny hairs called cilia, and folds of skin, all designed to defend the lungs, protect the body, and humidify the air.
“Imagine a sinus is a bony cave,” Solomon says. “The only opening is way up high near the ceiling and it’s tiny.”
The cilia are supposed to sweep the mucus from the sinus and allow it to drain from the front of the nose or down the back of the throat. Because we normally make a quart of mucus a day, those little hair guys have to work their roots off to keep things tidy.
“But when we are exposed to irritants, pollution, allergens and viruses, the mucus gets thicker and our tissues swell. It’s as if the pipes back up,” Solomon says. “The openings get plugged.” Short of using a microscopic plumber’s snake, the best way to unclog the works, and keep it unclogged, is to irrigate on a regular basis.

Engineering

Realizing the psychological and physical limitations of the neti pot, Solomon came up with a new design that allows the user to stand upright and not assume a human pretzel position. Further, the pressure from the squeeze bottle creates a suctioning action that clears out the sinuses. No simple gravity at work here.
And unlike a neti pot, which tends to push the dirt and debris from the front of the nose to the inner recesses, Solomon’s system vacuums everything out immediately.
Nasopure is also a time saver because the container can be filled with a week’s worth of saline solution at one time — no daily mixing required.
Although it takes a day or two to master the technique, 2 year olds can do it, Solomon says. In fact, anyone who is able to stand and hold a toothbrush should have no problem. The idea is to “keep the sinus and inner ear openings clean, so the mucus drains normally and naturally as God intended it to,” she says.

Pass The Salt, Please

Aside from toddlers, Solomon recommends Nasopure for those with allergies, polyps, or anyone who is prone to sinus and ear infections. Pregnant women with congestion, who can’t take drugs, would benefit, too, as well as firefighters, farmers, soldiers, travelers and anybody exposed to polluted environments. Asthmatics and those who suffer from sleep apnea will be helped, too.
But perhaps the most common use of the product might be as a prophylactic, Solomon says.
“Let’s say you and I work in an office,” she says. “You’ve got a cold, sneezing and coughing all over the place. I will probably catch it in three to five days. But if I go home and wash my nose with a very salty solution, I have a good chance of removing or killing viral particles before they invade my body. You don’t have to be a doctor to know that if you put enough salt on any living thing, it will shrink up and die,” she says.

Common Sense

Dr. Solomon is not your ordinary, run-of-the-nursery pediatrician. Brooklyn-born, she was once a hippie living on a spiritual commune. “I was green before it was cool to be green,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve always traveled to the beat of a different drummer.”
She is from a conservative background (her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor) where, “I had never been exposed to the ‘take a pill for this, take a pill for that’ culture. I was always at arm’s length with the medical community as far as trusting them. In med school, I was a mature adult and didn’t take everything they said as golden.”
Perhaps that’s why she was open to concepts such as nasal irrigation.
“Doctors had been using the technique after surgery for 30 years,” she says. “My simple Jewish mother/common sense/ hippie approach was: If we’re using it after surgery, why wouldn’t we use it before? Why wouldn’t we wash daily to keep the sinuses from being infected, inflamed and troubled?”

Movin’ On Up

Dr. Hana’s Nasopure System was born in a basement — Solomon’s basement, actually, some eight years ago. “I hired my teenage son’s friends to put the kits together. Then I schlepped them up the stairs and out to the post office,” she says.
“My husband and I don’t believe in spending money we don’t have, so we didn’t seek a loan. I worked for no salary and put every nickel back into the kitty for the next big step,” she says.
Grosses have doubled every year and by January 2008, BeWell Health LLC moved upstairs and out to a 5,000-square-foot warehouse north of town where it is prospering. As president and CEO, Solomon has expansion on her mind.
“We are in approximately 200 brick-and-mortar stores throughout Missouri and the surrounding states — 500 nationally,” she says. “I want to roll this out nationally, but I don’t want to lose my soul.”
In the frenetic world of retailing, the chain stores reign and the terms they impose can be onerous and expensive; suppliers must submit or go away. Solomon favors a steady, thoughtful approach to growth and adds, “I absolutely insist on having fun while I’m doing this.”
She may be a transplant, but her loyalty to the Show-Me State rivals that of Harry Truman. Nasopure boxes are made in St. Louis, the bottles are manufactured in Kansas City, and everything is assembled at a sheltered workshop for the disabled in Columbia.

Goals

Dr. Solomon is the author of a new book, Clearing the Air One Nose at a Time, which will be available soon.
“It’s about the importance of keeping your personal filter clean and includes the history of nasal irrigation, as well as containing contributions by many medical professionals from around the country,” she says. Already she has had an inquiry from Dr. Oz of the “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The book will be available online.
“I hope I don’t sound like a hippie,” Solomon says with a laugh. “But I want to make a difference. Making a difference through my clinic was awesome, but I feel that Nasopure also has the potential to make a difference in terms of patient empowerment. One nose at a time, I hope to educate people about the risks of relying on too many medications, avoiding surgery wherever possible, and always consider common sense approaches first. That’s my goal.”

Dr. Hana’s Nasopure System is available locally at health food and drug stores and online at www.nasopure.com.

Revenge!

Question: What do wax, tar, rust, bleach, lipstick, nail polish, gum, motor oil, glue, paint, and Kool-Aid have in common? Answer: They are all undrinkable — and heartily unwelcome on your carpet and upholstery. These are the stains that vex nationally advertised brands, but are routinely removed by Revenge! if you don’t let them set.

Alchemist

Although it sounds a little like the title of a Clint Eastwood movie, Revenge! is actually an environmentally safe, water-based cleaning product that works like a champ and has a loyal following in Columbia.
The man behind this miracle is Stephen Mattison, 42, owner of Carpet Chemist, and the not-at-all-mad scientist who created the secret recipe.
“The reason I came up with it was seeing how many carpets were damaged by other spot removers,” he says. “You’d be surprised at how many dying jobs we’ve done, fixing the damage caused by products that have actually removed the color from the carpet. A lot of times, they also leave a pinkish or purplish stain.”
Case in point: Mattison was deep cleaning the off-white carpet of a regular client when he discovered hundreds of egg-shaped stains all over the downstairs. He was getting nervous, he says, when the homeowner returned and didn’t say a word about the purple spots. When he pointed them out, she told him that the children had cut the dog’s nails and had snipped one too short, causing the poor pooch to bleed as he hopped all over the house. So the kids grabbed the stain remover she had bought at the supermarket and dutifully swabbed down each paw print.
That convinced him to go ahead with his research.

Magic Spray

Revenge! was not created overnight, but evolved over a decade. Mattison went through “hundreds, if not thousands of formulations” before finding one that did the job. Although not trained in the field (he was a history major in college), “I’m a kind of on-the-job chemist,” he says with a laugh. ”Stains have always been our specialty and being in the business, I’m constantly looking for the next best thing to make my job easier and to wow my customers.”
Another case in point: At a local dinner party, someone accidentally dropped a glass of red wine on the white carpet. Normally, that would have been a disaster of gigantic proportions. But the quick-thinking hostess brought out a bottle of Revenge! that Mattison had given her and before the eyes of her astonished guests, took out the stain safely and completely. He got calls for months after that from people who had witnessed the vanishing act. They all wanted the “magic spray.”

Clean & Fresh

Your carpets and upholstery may look clean, but what’s the point if they smell like old socks or worse? Mattison has incorporated a deodorizer in Revenge! a feature that most other brands lack.
“I built that into the product because stains like milk and orange juice especially, can get stinky if you don’t get to them right away,” he says. Customers have commented about how much they love the smell,” he says. ”It’s a clean and fresh scent, not an overpowering industrial deodorant smell,” he says.
Then there’s the matter of Fido’s incontinence here in mid-continent.
“A little tinkle or a little accident — they are really big problems for the homeowner,” Mattison says. “There are horror stories about people using Windex and products like that to get out pet odor. That’s crazy. Or they’ll try three or four things, which is a crapshoot, and a lot of the time makes things worse. But with the right product, they are easy to take care of.”

Think Globally — Buy Locally

Revenge! is manufactured and bottled in Columbia. Mattison is a cleaning professional and insists on using professional-style carafes and professional trigger sprayers. It’s a low-tech operation, he says, but the consumer gets a good deal with the 32-ounce container. “Most spot removers have shrunken to 20 ounces — a ridiculously small amount. That’s not doing the consumer justice because the last thing you want to do is run out halfway through the stain,” he says. “We offer a full quart and gallon refills.”
Mattison’s product also has certain advantages.
“I’m not a chemical company trying to figure out the cheapest and easiest way to move chemicals on the market,” he says. “I’m a carpet cleaner with years of experience trying to make sure my customers prolong the life of their carpets and upholstery, and to do it in a way that will work for them every time.”.

Crazy-Busy

College kids are not known for their fastidious housekeeping habits, which keeps Mattison jumping during the summer months, cleaning countless student apartments and getting them spic and span for the new arrivals in the fall.
“It’s a crazy-busy time,” he says. But the built-in turnover means good business, and that’s one of the reasons Mattison decided to stay here after graduating from the University of Missouri.
“I had lots of options,” he says. “My family wanted me to move to St. Louis, but by then I had fallen in love with Columbia. It’s a very busy and metropolitan city, and the perfect place to raise a family.” He and his wife, Heidi, have a 2-year-old named Lyla Grace and are expecting another child at the end of May.

Near Horizons

On the horizon, in addition to the baby, are two new Revenge! formulas — one especially for pet stains and one designed to make your laundry spotless. “I’m working with local supermarkets and chains, and I’m in the infancy of getting it launched nationwide,” he says.
“Revenge! works better than any other product I can find, and I’ve tested it against everything. I still do with anything new that comes on the market. These are side-by-side comparisons. For 95 percent of household spills, Revenge! is perfect.”

Revenge! is available online at www.buyrevenge.com and will be in local supermarkets soon.

Patric Chocolate

If you think the best chocolate on earth comes from a giant factory in Pennsylvania, then you probably prefer Boone’s Farm Melon Ball wine to a vintage Chateau Petrus. But you’ll never know what you’re missing until you sample the real deal made by Alan McClure right here in town.

Artisan Chocolate

Let’s get the terms and conditions on the table. McClure doesn’t make candy bars. He doesn’t put fruit and nuts in his product. He doesn’t use bulk chocolate and whip it into confections loaded with creamy fillings.
He is a serious small-batch, bean-to-bar artisan who buys and roasts his own single-source cacao from Madagascar. The result is darker than dark chocolate and unlike anything most people have ever tasted. Gourmet magazine noted that his product was “rich and inviting, with notes of luscious citrus, red wine and berries.” If that sounds like a wine review, you’re not far off. This is chocolate for adults, one that must be savored slowly and appreciated for its complexity — like a fine wine.

A Religious Experience

McClure, 30, had his epiphany while he was living near Lyon, the culinary capital of France.
“I love many different kinds of food and beverages,” he says. “So that was a great place to be. I made it my goal to find the best chocolate I could.”
He discovered a place called Bernachon, and wondered why the shop’s particular confections were far superior to the others he had tasted.
“At the time, I thought all chocolatiers made their own chocolate. I didn’t realize it was such a rare thing — even in France. There are probably only six or seven small companies there that do it,” he says.
Bernachon was better because the confectioners there make some of their own chocolate, he says. “They understood the process and could make choices others couldn’t.”
Intrigued, he returned to the United States and quickly found that there were precious few chocolate makers here and wondered if he could do it himself. That’s when he launched into a sustained period of research that eventually led him to establish Patric Chocolate in January 2007.

Pure

The chocolate McClure makes has only two ingredients — cacao and sugar. He doesn’t add any flavorings or preservatives because that would ruin the taste and aroma he is working so hard to achieve. Currently, he has three Madagascar bars — 75, 70, 67 percent cacao — as well as baking chocolate, hot chocolate disks and cacao ribs.
In the interest of full disclosure, the 67 percent bar contains a small amount of cocoa butter for texture. “I press the cocoa butter myself from the same cacao that is in the chocolate, so that the flavor profile is consistent,” he says. “I am only one of two small companies in the U.S. that does that at the moment.”
But if the recipe is simplicity itself, what’s all the fuss about? First, you gotta know beans about beans. Not all cacao is created equal. It must come from a location boasting the perfect terroir, that is, somewhere with just the right soil and climate. Then it must be harvested and dried correctly or it won’t meet the standards of a perfectionist like McClure.
“The fermentation process brings out flavors you’d find in wine and beer,” he says. And that’s where the artistry comes in — choosing what to keep and what to lose. In the skilled hands of a master like McClure, chocolate becomes a rich, aromatic masterpiece of subtle tastes.

In The Blood

McClure was born in Kansas City and arrived in Columbia via St. Louis in 2002. He has a degree in religious studies, so why the interest in chocolate?
“People have asked me that many times,” he says. “To be honest, I never really have a good answer. It’s just something I’m naturally attracted to. It’s an exaggeration, but I think it’s in my genetic code somewhere. That wouldn’t be too far off.”
So deeply is he into the art of dark chocolate that he even builds his own machinery.
“I design a lot of my own equipment,” he says. “Partly because it’s interesting, but partly because it’s necessary. Small chocolate companies died out in the U.S. during the early 20th century. So there hasn’t been anyone around making small-scale chocolate manufacturing machinery for a long, long time.”
McClure believes that microbatch chocolate making is on the rise since its demise more than 100 years ago. To that end, he is one of the founders of Craft Chocolate Makers of America, a trade organization that will set down guidelines for its members and for those just entering the business.

The Business Of Chocolate

Originally a self-funded enterprise, the company began as a one-man show and has grown. Patric Chocolate now has three part-time employees, supplemented during the summer and holidays by McClure’s wife, Viviane Ducret, who holds a Ph.D. in French literature and teaches at MU. At full speed, they make about 800 pounds of chocolate, or 7,500 bars, a month.
McClure takes a small salary, but most of the money is driven back into the business.
“I have complete faith I’ll be able to pay myself what I like later on. What’s important to me right now is to have a strong and thriving company,” he says.
He is selling his product in cities all over the country, mostly on both coasts, but enjoys thriving sales in Missouri, too.
McClure finds the business atmosphere around here comfortable, adding that most people “like the idea of buying something made on a small scale, made locally, and is of high quality.
“I consider myself just one company within a vibrant and growing artisan food community in Columbia. If residents support their local food artisans, then more of them will start their own companies. We, in turn, will have better food to eat and pay less to do so,” he says.

To order online, visit www.patric-chocolate.com. Free shipping is available on orders of more than $50 for Valentine’s Day.