Today we’d like to introduce you to Savannah Campbell

Hi Savannah, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

I started my career on a relatively typical path – I started in a vocational high school culinary arts program before going to culinary school. I attended Johnson & Wales University and got my Associate’s Degree in Culinary Arts and my Bachelor’s Degree in Food and Beverage Entrepreneurship. From the time I was very young, I knew I wanted to own a business – I had thoughts of opening a restaurant, food truck, and a catering company. I’ve even created business plans in my spare time detailing the different business ideas I’ve had.
After graduating with my degrees, I moved across the country from culinary school in Rhode Island to the mountains in Colorado to work in the banquets department at a resort. As my first post-grad job, I loved being hands on and learning as much as possible from 400 person weddings to charcuterie boards to feed 1,000+ people to pastry in the off season. Then, the pandemic hit in 2020. Gatherings were out of our vocabulary for over a year and my job was in a hiatus state. During this time, I decided to move back to the east coast and pursue other ventures.
Post pandemic, the culinary industry shifted in many ways – staff was hard to come by, so everyone remaining had to work so much harder. Tensions were high and in conjunction with other factors, for the first time in my life I started to feel burnout. I got through 10-12+ hour shifts, sometimes in toxic environments, with the sheer power of caffeine (and long venting sessions to my mom).
At this point in 2022, I was 3 years post grad and hadn’t really revisited the idea of my own business because I was so busy and distracted with my professional life. However, when my joy in creating and cooking in restaurants started to decline with burnout, I started to brainstorm again. I was drinking so much coffee, usually a flavored latte, and aside from seasonal flavors like pumpkin spice, the flavors were often repetitive – hazelnut, caramel, vanilla, mocha. I started to think about how I could put my own spin on the flavored latte I was having every day and thought it’d be interesting to pull from the Caribbean flavors I grew up with. My first creation was the Jamaican Coconut Drop syrup, inspired by the popular treat from Jamaica. From there, I put a cultural spin on staple coffee flavors like chocolate, which developed into our Chocolate Rum Cream syrup featuring dark Jamaican rum extract. I recipe tested for months and eventually told friends about it.
After telling friends, I was pointed in the direction of Hope & Main, a food business incubator based in Warren, RI. That was the real jumping off point. I took a meeting to see what it’d be like running my business out of their shared kitchens. I finally had a tangible way to take this business idea from words on paper to actionable steps. I became a member in spring 2022 and launched my Caribbean inspired flavored syrup brand, Caribe & Co. in September 2022.
While going through classes and licensing to launch my brand, I was still working full time. Until finally in October 2022, one month after starting my business, I quit my full-time job for a variety of reasons, mostly burnout and also because the positive feedback I received about my syrups made me feel like I could make this my full-time gig.
After many, many ups and downs, a lot of figuring it out and making things works, I’m happy to say Caribe & Co. is still my full-time job!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

NO. I can’t emphasis how challenging it can be to run a business, especially a food business. From supply chain issues to rising food costs to extreme weather during farmer’s market season, running a food business is like riding a perpetual rollercoaster.
One of my biggest challenges has been weather. During summer 2023, it rained almost every weekend in Rhode Island. Farmer’s markets, at this time, were the bread and butter for my business and having markets cancelled or attendance drop because of weather was so disheartening because there was nothing anyone could do about it. This, in part, prompted my emphasis on social media marketing and e-commerce because regardless of weather, I can still earn revenue from online sales.
Another challenge I’ve faced is general costs. Whether it’s licensing and permits, inventory, farmer’s market fees, or anything else on the mile long list of business expenses that I have – there is always a bill due somewhere. It’s so important to be conservative with spending because cash flow issues can arise quickly. Inventory is one of my biggest costs, of course. Prices often decrease with scale, for example the cost of one bottle is cheaper when you buy 100 cases of bottles versus when you buy 10 cases of bottles. However, buying in bulk is very financially taxing on a small business. In attempts to mitigate that, I often apply for grants and scholarships to bring more cash into the business.
Lastly, staffing has been a huge problem. While I’m not financially at the stage to hire a part time or full-time employee, I do need the help. With increasing demand, I’ve increased production, shipping, and marketing. With only 24 hours in the day, it can be hard to manage it all and having another person would be so beneficial.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Caribe & Co.?

Caribe & Co. makes coffee & cocktail syrups with Caribbean-inspired flavors. We take inspiration from staple flavors in the Caribbean diaspora to bring a cultural experience to your morning cup of coffee. We bring a cultural experience to your typical vanilla, chocolate, and caramel flavors, which sets us apart from other syrup brands. We craft our syrups with all natural ingredients – no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives. Being a chef-founded brand, versatility is so important which is why we emphasize using our syrups not just for coffee and cocktails, but also seltzer water, tea, over pancakes and ice cream!

In our 2 years in business, I’m most proud of the feelings of nostalgia we’ve conjured up in our customers. One of my favorite memories is a customer trying our Sorrel & Ginger syrup and saying “this tastes like home”. It made me so happy!

Readers should know that Caribe & Co. was dreamt up from a mix of creativity, burnout, and a slight caffeine addiction. It’s not at all where I saw myself even 5 years ago but I’m so glad I’m here. If you’re an aspiring business owner with an idea, get it out there, you never know how it can change your life!

Pricing:

• 12 oz Syrups – $18
• Sampler Pack – $26

Contact Info:

• Website: https://caribeandco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caribeandco/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@caribeandco

Image Credits

Angel Tucker Photography