EPISODE 051
Eat, Plant, Love and Grow your Business
With Taylor and Brennan Clarke
Growing from a tiny seed of an idea to a flourishing company, the couple behind a subversive new product shares the pivotal moments that fueled their major success in the sustainable confectionery industry.
Taylor and Brennan Clarke are the Co-Creators of Amborella Organics, a revolutionary line of organic seed-bearing lollipops with herbs and flowers throughout. After years of grit and hard work, Amborella products are now featured in Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom and Uncommon Goods as well as hundreds of trend-setting cafés, florists and curated shops around the world. Amborella Organics has been featured in Goop, Daily Mail, Food Network Magazine, ABC News, Nylon and Epicurious.
Amborella Organics leads the confectionery market in conversations about sustainability, ethical means of production and conscious consumer goods. Their lollipops feature flavors like strawberry and basil, champagne and roses, and lavender and lemongrass, with thoughtful product packaging. After enjoying the luxurious flavors of an Amborella lollipop, you simply plant the stick horizontally in the ground and grow the seeds of a plant you just consumed. It’s beautiful and it keeps giving back to you and the earth! There were no other lollipops like them anywhere, and the Clarkes overcame every adversity to make them a reality.
You can accept challenges and rise to the occasion
Taylor and Brennan Clarke are no strangers to the challenges of growing a business. Beyond the usual red tape of starting a new company, they wanted to stick to their own rigorous standards of ingredient sourcing, flavor formulation, pouring and packaging. This would prove to be an incredible obstacle, but they made it happen through sheer determination and hard work.
After being invited to promote Amborella at a trade show for the first time, they stayed up late the night before the event – making their website on Squarespace in bed. It paid off. Immediately after the event, they received their first wholesale account: It was Alfred, a trendy influencer in the coffee space promoting small brands from Los Angeles to Tokyo! Amborella Organics even went viral in 2017, reaching over ten million views with a video feature on NowThis News.
They were experiencing explosive growth when they found out that their lollipop manufacturer was closing up shop – with just two weeks of notice. In a moment that could have caused anyone to quit, Taylor and Brennan doubled down! They poured lollipops by hand and stacked boxes as high as the ceiling as their family and friends helped them fulfill thousands of orders.
Finally, they built a company headquarters with an organic kitchen and efficient in-house production.
Stick to your mission and your vision
Most lollipops are formulated with lab-created ingredients, poured overseas, then packaged and branded. That’s been done before – and the Clarkes had no interest in being just another candy company.
On top of all of this, they are frequently made with mass-production machines that are unable to handle the seeds and petals in Amborella’s lollipops without breaking down.
In the midst of every challenge, there were roadblocks that could have easily made them compromise their vision. But with an unwavering commitment to their long-term goals for Amborella, the Clarkes accepted each challenge as an opportunity to improve the industry as a whole.
Always be planting seeds
Amborella Organics is not just about lollipops. It’s about a future of sustainability and respect for the planet, as evidenced by their tagline: “Eat, Plant, Love.” Just like you can plant seeds from every Amborella lollipop, the Clarkes plant seeds of change for the confectionery industry with every hurdle they knock down.
It’s a sunny reminder that we can create a better world for all those who follow in our footsteps – by believing in the power of our ideas.
Quotes
“We didn’t want to create something that already existed. The copy-and-paste model was not interesting to us. Beyond seed-bearing technology, we also wanted a delicious flavor that wasn’t already out there.”
“We have ambitions to do a lot of things – but we will always be botanical, organic and different.”
“We truly have stuck with our vision. It has been ten times as hard, but it has been worth it. Throughout this entire process, people have tried to get us to compromise our vision to make things cheaper or easier, and we have stuck to our guns. We know who we are, and who our customer is. We’re confident in that!”
“If it was something we had to do alone, it would have been too impossible.”
“It’s important to create a dialogue about what can be sustainable!”
Links mentioned in this episode:
Podcast Resources
Visit the Amborella Organics website at https://amborellaorganics.com/
Read Amborella’s growing press features on their company website at https://amborellaorganics.com/pages/press
Find Amborella’s wholesale application by clicking here: https://amborellaorganics.com/pages/wholesaleapplication
Follow Amborella Organics on Instagram for fun giveaways and new flavor releases at https://www.instagram.com/amborellaorganics/
Connect with the team at Amborella Organics on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/amborella-organics/
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