We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lani Fox a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lani, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

When creating our company name, I wanted my kid’s names to be included, they both have “Ro” in theirs; and I thought of rose, my favorite flower. When I put rose with mallow, it’s the name of a beautiful, edible flower—perfect for us as we focus on edible florals. Roses specifically bring me back to idyllic summer get-togethers at my great-grandmother’s house. My cousins and I would swim and jump off their diving board. I would eat fresh, warm figs from her tree, and she’d regale me with tales of old Hollywood, growing up, and meeting my great-grandfather. In the late afternoons, holding my mom’s hand I’d walk through my grandmother’s rose garden. I’d insist on smelling a rose from each bush as the wind-chimes sang in the summer breeze. Now at Rosemallow Artisanal (www.rosemallow.com), rose-vanilla made with fresh petals grown in my garden is our signature flavor. I love when I hear our confections evoke others’ joyous childhood memories, too.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

At Rosemallow Artisanal, we’ve upended and reinvented the marshmallow! “Rosemallows,” are a derivation of a marshmallow inspired by a truffle, using spun sugar with fresh produce harvested on our small urban farm to create a cloud-like confection. Rosemallows create a food adventure you’ll want to repeat and share. We’re continually referred to as a whimsical Willy Wonka’s because the flavors of Rosemallows develop and change as our confections are eaten. We offer two categories of our small-batch confections: 1) mug toppers designed to soak into a cocktail or melt on a hot beverage such as coffee, tea, or hot cocoa and 2) mallow truffles accompanied with a sampling guide to move you through your tasting journey. All our confections come wrapped in earth-friendly, fully compostable materials. We have an online storefront, www.rosemallow.com that we ship from and we provide local pickup in Claremont, CA.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

For most women, when we start a business from our home our contributions are reduced to “side hustles.” We’re called “mompreneurs.” We’re not taken seriously. I’m grounded and wise enough to recognize that Rosemallow Artisanal has huge growth potential; nothing similar exists in the food market and it has the elements to be a huge success. That’s why I started a company rather than a hobby. Because I’m a woman though, people saw it as a fun project, or simply supplemental income. When we started selling out, going viral at events, and getting media coverage, they changed their tune! All companies start somewhere, mine just happened to start from my home. And because of this, I’ve had to fight against outdated perceptions in order to legitimize my business. In fact, it’s taboo for women to even talk about running their businesses out of the house, but it’s important that we do so we can start taking women’s at-home businesses more seriously.

Rosemallow Artisanal is fully permitted by the LA County Health Department, the City of Claremont, and the State of California. Similar to restaurant kitchens, my food business is regulated by California laws enforced by the Health Department. My kitchen must be inspected and approved by the Health Department to keep our food permit. I don’t think people understand how involved the Health Department is. Unlike commercial kitchens, every ingredient and every recipe we use has to be pre-approved by the Health Department. Because our Rosemallows are made in my kitchen, and not in a rented or shared commercial kitchen, I know our food is 100% gluten-free and celiac-safe. There’s absolutely no worry about allergen cross-contamination.

I am more than just a home cook, I am a CEO, entrepreneur, and changemaker. Innovation does happen in a home kitchen. More and more of the world is going remote and working from their homes, and it’s not questioned. Why can’t the women who run our businesses from home be taken seriously as well?

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

With 25 years of experience working with farm produce, we let the ingredients lead the way, tasting and adapting our recipes with each iteration to make sure the final product truly showcases our fresh fruits, herbs, and veggies. Rosemallows are made with fresh produce primarily grown in our urban farm. If we used the exact same recipe each time the final product would suffer. Fresh produce varies tremendously during the season, as does each individual variety of an apple, cucumber, and berry.

There’s also a lot of research and flavor testing that goes into deciding which Rosemallow flavors will make the cut. We strive for innovation and host focus groups to taste flavor combinations and determine the iteration that brings the most delightful surprise. For example, with our pineapple-cocoa flavor, our testers tasted plain pineapple, pineapple with ginger, pineapple with cocoa, pineapple with ginger and cocoa, and pineapple with cinnamon. We landed on pineapple with cocoa on the bottom of the confection, topped with turbinado sugar and a slight hint of salt leading tasters to a bespoke, flavor journey where each element is present and joyously plays with the others. Some of our favorite flavors have been chocolate-rose, honey-cocoa, basil-peppermint, loquat-fennel, grapefruit-brown sugar-cinnamon, watermelon-peach, and jalapeño-vanilla. One of my favorite parts of owning Rosemallow Artisanal is watching people eat our confections and seeing their faces change with amazement of how good they are.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rosemallow.com
• Instagram: @RosemallowArtisanal
• Facebook: @RosemallowArtisanal
• Youtube: @RosemallowArtisanal

Image Credits
Rebecca Zeller Photography