How Bitter Radicchio Became Portland’s 21st-Century Sweetheart
By Lola Milholland July 30, 2026 Published in the Fall 2026 issue of Portland Monthly
The work has borne fruit, making radicchio an economic lifeline during farmers’ most sodden season. From 2023 to 2024, produce specialist Rubinette’s radicchio sales jumped more than 50 percent. The following year, Organically Grown Company, the region’s largest organic vegetable distributor, doubled its radicchio volume. “Seeing radicchio at a market stall or on the shelves of a farmstand is a kind of shorthand for a more thoughtful, less extractive sort of agriculture,” Selman and Waterbury write. “It’s beautiful—more beautiful than it needs to be. Life offers us so few opportunities to indulge our aesthetics while aligning with our ethics. Why miss one?”