The sweetest partnerships are local. That’s why we love working with our friends at Salt & Straw. Learn more about their process, ingredients, and what makes Salt & Straw at New Seasons so special.
In 2011, cousins Kim and Tyler Malek wheeled a pushcart into Portland's Alberta Arts District with a big idea—to create a community gathering place centered around local ingredients that showcase a canvas for flavors nobody had thought to make yet. Nearly 15 years later, Salt & Straw has grown into one of Portland's most beloved institutions—and they still make their ice cream in Portland, still support local farmers and food artisans, and still kick off every month with a list of people they want to collaborate with and ingredients they can't stop thinking about.
We've been Salt & Straw fans since day one, and we're delighted we get to showcase their one-of-a-kind flavors at New Seasons—including half-pints and Tacolate.
Because we love the stories behind our favorite local foods, we caught up with Kim and Tyler Malek to learn more about Salt & Straw's journey, ingredients, and partnership with New Seasons.
NSM: What does the work you do mean to you?
KM & TM: We're most proud of how many people we get to do this with. Every single flavor is a collaboration—with a farmer in the Willamette Valley, the team at Cloud Forest Chocolate down the street in Portland, a baker we love, a chef whose work we admire. These collaborations result in flavors that genuinely couldn't be made anywhere else. Some give the farms and food artisans we love a brand-new audience for their work. Some rescue ingredients that would have ended up in a landfill and turns them into something delicious. When we look back at what we've built, it's never really felt like "we"—it's felt like a whole community of makers, growers, and neighbors making something together. That feels like work worth being proud of.
NSM: What's unique about Salt & Straw?
KM & TM: We think about ice cream the way a chef thinks about a tasting menu—every flavor starts with an ingredient or a person or a story we wanted to tell. Our menu rotates monthly, so every visit feels like a new chapter. We work with chefs, farmers, and food artisans across the country to pull ingredients we love into recipes that surprise us first, and then hopefully surprise you. Sometimes the result is a little unexpected—Pear & Blue Cheese, Strawberry Honey Balsamic with Black Pepper—but we promise there's a reason every one of those flavors got onto the menu. It usually starts with an ingredient too good not to use.
NSM: What's your mission and motivation?
KM & TM: We started Salt & Straw with a simple idea: ice cream is one of the most universally loved foods in the world, and that gives it a kind of power. It can turn a regular Tuesday into an occasion. It can put a hometown chef's work in front of a national audience. It can make a stranger at a counter feel completely seen for thirty seconds. So our mission is to use ice cream—and the small moments around it—to build community, support the people growing food in our region, and remind everyone that the things we eat can have a story worth telling. Then it's a daily commitment to making ice cream that's actually worth crossing town for.
NSM: What has it been like working with New Seasons Market?
KM & TM: It's felt like home, honestly. Salt & Straw has been a Portland company since day one, and New Seasons has been woven into our community and the way we see this city for as long as we've been making ice cream. When we started Salt & Straw back in 2011, New Seasons was one of the first places people mentioned when we'd ask, "Where would you want to find us next?" So getting to land here, with our Tacolates and half-pints, feels like a full-circle moment. What we love most about partnering with New Seasons is that you don't just sell our ice cream—you celebrate it. You know the farmers we work with. You introduce our flavors with the same care your team uses to talk about everything else on the shelves. That kind of partnership is rare, and we're really grateful for it.
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