Haute Sugar Co. : Putting a Modern Spin on Nostalgic Nibbles
“I think of myself as a modern day Willy Wonka. I want everything to be fun, to reinvent nostalgic experiences and to give people a modern take on classic confections.”
This confectioner is Savannah Starr, and she wants to put a sweet spin on special occasions, be they intimate weddings or corporate shindigs. With her Haute Sugar Co.’s mobile confections carts, she serves up “Couture Cotton Candy,” “Haute Coffee + Tea” and “Haute Waffles.”
Now, if the mention of cotton candy conjures cringe-worthy memories of circus carnies hawking pink clouds of cloying fluff, rest assured. Haute Sugar is not that. A recent Haute Sugar creation featured hand-spun cinnamon roll cotton candy topped with crispy bacon bits, shavings of salt-cured duck eggs and microgreens.
I don’t know about you, but this is clearly not the cotton candy of my youth.
A San Luis Obispo County native, Savannah started Haute Sugar in 2016 with just the cotton candy, then added the Belgian waffle bites. As is her style, these are not your ordinary waffles, and they have the Instagram buzz to prove it. Toppings might be vanilla ice cream swirls, Swiss buttercream frosting rosettes, deftly placed macarons, thin gourmet chocolate squares or edible gold bits because — as she says — “you have to!”
Haute Sugar also offers beverages ranging from elegant cocktails and mocktails to barista-styled cold brews. Thanks to the technology of edible sugar sheets, custom images, such as small logos and commemorative dates, can be printed to place atop the chilled foam.
“I’ve always been a creative person, and I’m a sixth-generation female entrepreneur,” Savannah acknowledges. “My great grandma was Aleene Jackson, a pioneer of the craft industry and the inventor of Aleene’s Tacky Glue. She paved the path for the three powerful women who raised me — my mom, grandma and great-aunt. I am who I am because of their unconditional encouragement, always supporting and pushing me to dream big.”
She pays that sentiment forward by cheering on fellow women business owners, especially through her vendor choices. “Supporting each other never goes out of style,” Savannah says proudly .
Given her lifetime love of food, it’s no surprise that Savannah ended up in some aspect of the industry. While still in her teens, she landed a job at Full of Life Flatbread in Los Alamos, where she worked under the culinary auspices of founder/owner Clark Staub and (then) chef Brian Collins. She would later join Chef Brian at his own Ember restaurant in Arroyo Grande, where she continued to learn the elements of flavor and texture that she brings to Haute Sugar.
Though she relished her job at Ember, Savannah’s entrepreneurial streak kicked in, and she realized, “I needed to do something for myself.” But what? Playing around with the notion of nostalgia spoke to her, so she Googled that very word. Up popped “cotton candy.”
The rest, as they say, is sweet, sweet history.
Now, coming up on four years into her business, many of Haute Sugar’s gigs are at corporate events in Los Angeles and San Francisco, sometimes with as many as 3,000 attendees. Clearly, she has hit on success, and she wants to give back, especially to an industry that makes it all possible.
“My company is based on sugar, but after seeing ‘Sweet Deal’ on Netflix, I had a huge, life-changing realization that altered the course of my business forever,” Savannah explains. The episode (in the second season of “Rotten,” a series focusing on food supply problems) exposed the not-so-sweet side of the worldwide sugar industry, including the horrific living conditions of most of its workers.
“That is not okay with me!” Savannah says. “I realized I wanted to work towards getting sugar to a fair trade model. My next steps involve asking for help so I can put Haute Sugar Co. in a position to catapult conversations, connect to the right people and change the sugar industry.”
That’s no small playbook of goals, but this energetic entrepreneur has been taught to flourish.
