Creekside Mallow was born from a backyard campfire and sleepover when our daughter, Grace, had a light bulb moment and rushed into the house and yelled, “We should open a gourmet s’mores store!” We didn’t act immediately but the idea stayed in our minds, prompting conversations about how the store would have to revolve around an exceptional marshmallow. Our search came up empty in looking for a source for better than average mallow. We began to research and experiment with recipes until they came up with the perfect hand-crafted mallow.
Our experiments lead to testing, and family and friends became our “focus group”. The reactions were encouraging and that encouragement lead to the development of an idea of how to sell our new product. We decided that we would build a catering business around our mallows. A S’mores bar that would allow people to make a gourmet S’more using our mallows and different chocolates and sauces.
Our first event was a hit! We were beginning to think we had something and as word got out, we found that we were getting calls from all over the area. Several times at each event customers would tell us that we needed to sell the mallows in stores. Our story may have ended there, we had no idea how to get a product of our own into stores, much less how to package, market, and distribute it. A chance meeting in Boise introduced us to the Idaho Small Business Development Center and a host of advisors and mentors. Working with the SBDC, which we still lean on from time to time, was the break we desperately needed.
In 2017 fate smiled on us once again when we found our current store and commercial kitchen location in downtown Caldwell Idaho. This meant we would no longer be needing to rent space in someone else’s kitchen and we could really pursue wholesale accounts, along with having a small retail location of our own.
Partnerships, collaborations, and terrific people in many positions have brought us to our current state and we appreciate everyone of them.