We were lucky to catch up with Melinda Norman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Melinda, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Caramel is, in the simplest terms, just burnt sugar. My career as a pastry chef nurtured a love for all things sweet, but I found myself developing a specific love and fascination with caramel. The process of taking simple white sugar and heating it beyond the melting point and turning it into something complex and layered is mesmerizing. It echoes aspects of life that on the surface seem straightforward, but turn up the heat a little bit and you’ll find complication and nuance.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

After completing a degree in Culinary Arts, I had many different restaurant jobs until I settled in as a pastry chef. I was able to incorporate many candy making techniques in my dishes and soon found myself finding more and more excuses to make candy. I was specifically drawn to old fashioned style sweets that aren’t often found being sold as an artisan product due to the techniques being labor intensive and time consuming. For example, I set out to make a better version of the regional favorite “Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll.” It utilizes several different candy making techniques that all have to be executed perfectly to achieve a cohesive product. This means the nougat has to be fresh and soft, the peanut caramel has to be firm enough to hold it’s shape but soft enough to wrap around the nougat. Then each piece has to be cut, wrapped, and packaged.

A challenge that many artisan makers face is perceived value. There is an assumption with my line of work, and with anyone in the “treats” industry (bakers also deal with this,) is that it’s a “hobby job.” The idea that baking and candy making is fun, therefore your labor has less value. I’ve encountered many instances of people scoffing at my prices and proclaiming they could just make caramels at home. I love this opportunity to share what makes my candies special and talk about the creating process.

I love being able to provide gifting opportunities to both individuals and corporations. I believe my product is the perfect combination of unique and approachable. It’s hand-crafted with care, but with flexible pricing options to meet with most budgets.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In the early days of Burnt Sugar, I was trying cling on to my pastry chef roots. I love creating creating custom cakes and catering desserts for events. I set up my website offering both dessert catering and a custom candy line. I did this for several years. My social media was filled with pictures of elaborate cakes one day and packaged candy the next. I slowly began to realize that this was having a negative impact on both my brand and personal health. For my business, it was causing brand confusion. What exactly is Burnt Sugar? Is it a bakery? A catering company? A candy store? For my personal health, I was getting burnt out (pun intended.) I was producing and packaging candy during the week and dessert catering on weekends. I ultimately had to choose one direction and go full steam ahead. I dropped cakes and desserts from my services and haven’t looked back.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I started Burnt Sugar out of my home in early 2019 under the Minnesota Cottage Food Law. While great for getting started, there are many restrictions on how you can sell your product and who you can sell it to. Mainly, you are restricted to direct to consumer in-person sales, such as farmers markets and art fairs. In 2020 when Covid lockdowns happened, that obviously was not an option. I had already planned on branching out into a commercially licensed kitchen to be able to sell my products in stores, but Covid expedited that plan. I was very fortunate to find a kitchen space in 2020 and have been slowly expanding since then.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.burntsugarmn.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burntsugarmn

Image Credits

Poly Mendes Photography
Dynamic Photowerks