Oronoco business owner says tariffs are 'devastating' for her Busy Baby company
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By Jeff Kiger, Post Bulletin
Business was going well for local entrepreneur Beth (Fynbo) Benike. Just last week, she was named Minnesota's Small Business Person of the Year and in recent months celebrated finally getting her Busy Baby products onto the shelves of big box stores like Target and Walmart. But then came a crushing blow: tariffs.
The new U.S. tariffs on China doubled the costs of her Busy Baby products and effectively killed a new contract with Walmart.
Now, Benike is left to wonder if she'll have a business — or a home — at all in the coming months.
“It’s devastating. It’s heartbreaking," she said while driving to her warehouse in Zumbrota on Tuesday morning. “I have to call Walmart and tell them ‘Nevermind. I can't take the contract extension. We can't expand. I can't bring in new products at the price we agreed to, because my cost, as of yesterday, doubles.’"
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Benike, a U.S. Army veteran, created Busy Baby in 2017.
Busy Baby, which she owns with her brother, makes and sells a variety of baby-related gear, including their signature product — the Busy Baby Mat. The silicone placemat features suction cups to stay in place with stretchy tethers to attach baby toys.
Benike, who made an appearance on the “Shark Tank” start-up pitch TV show, has five employees and a warehouse/distribution facility in Zumbrota. Her products, which Target and Walmart recently started selling, are all made in China.
“Now I have to tell Walmart that I really appreciate the fact that they want to expand our business in their stores, but, unfortunately, I can't commit to that, which is heartbreaking. I've been working for years to get into these two retailers. It's the most exciting thing that's happened to our business in the last six months and now I have to turn around and tell them that we can't do it,” she said.
The tariffs are forcing her to look at selling in Australia or Canada as her products will double in price in the U.S.
Benike said she would like to have the products made in the U.S., but the infrastructure isn’t here. The raw material of silicone comes from Asia and the machines to make the products are also made in China.
“Nothing like this has ever been made in the U.S. We're veterans. We are very proud of our country. We want to do this here, but it's just not physically possible. The opening orders for a minimum order quantity in China for us is 2,000 units. For the very few factories that do exist in the US that could acquire the machinery to do our type of manufacturing, a minimum order would be 20,000 units,” she said.
U.S. leaders are saying that this economic pain from the tariffs should only be in the short-term. However, that doesn’t comfort Benike, who has only about two months' worth of products on hand in Zumbrota.
“‘Short-term’ to the government might be a three- to five-year plan. For me, I literally will go out of business and lose my house that I live in with my children in four months, if I can't find a way to sell my products internationally, like right now,” she said. “I gotta pick myself up. I gotta put my boots back on and I have to learn about international distribution to sell in other countries right now.”
This massive disruption comes on the heels of the good news that the U.S. Small Business Administration chose Benike as Minnesota’s Small Business Person of the Year for 2025. She will be honored during National Small Business Week in Washington, D.C. on May 4-5 along with other representatives from each of the states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.
“It’s crazy to me that literally less than two weeks ago, I was named Small Business Person of the Year for Minnesota. And now I am trying to figure out how to not completely lose my business,” said Benike. “And it's not because of a mistake I made. It's not because I was not a good business owner. It's something completely out of my control. It's just mind-boggling to me.”
She had expected to have a pleasant time accepting an award in Washington, but her plans for the trip have changed.
“I have never been more inclined to use my voice. I've never been one to be the spokesperson for anything, but I sit on the boards of Red Wing Ignite and SMIF (Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation.) They were the organizations that helped me start,” said Benike. “I’m going to Washington to use my voice and talk to whoever I can talk to about how this affects real people and real small businesses. Small businesses make up such a huge percentage of our economy.”