We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Thompson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?

I had no idea I would become an entrepreneur. I do not have a background in business. I am a former professional dancer, health researcher and student of herbal medicine. Each of these fields has gifted me a valuable lesson that I have used in starting and growing my own business. As a professional dancer I learned grit and persistence. We repeated the same movements every day for weeks to months to years and always sought to improve each and every time. Sometimes your body aches. Sometimes you are tired and wonder if you can muster the energy required for a strenuous day of class and rehearsal. All of these may be true at once and still we would start moving. You have to make the effort required and find the flow. I have greatly appreciated this lesson as I have days when I am so tired from 10 hours of pop production on my own or from hours outside in the sun working the carts. I know I just have to do the work, start moving and find the flow in the moment-to-moment interactions with those around me.

I also worked in the department of Health Promotions Research at Northwestern University and then Department of Medicine at UIC in Chicago. I worked on research projects aimed at helping communities to make healthier lifestyle choices. I designed and taught curricula that centered around nutrition education and physical fitness. I worked in many communities all around the city of Chicago and found myself inspired by all those that I met. I learned that everyone would like to live a healthy life. I met kids and adults who expressed a desire to feel more energy, to feel less physically bogged down and who wanted to learn more about how to make healthier choices in their diet and lifestyle activities. This was part of the reason we created Honey Child Pops. We wanted to utilize a familiar and nostalgic experience (eating a popsicle) and infuse it with whole blended fruit and superfood ingredients without the cane sugar and dairy. So far our experience is that those who are actively working to change their diet are delighted to find a treat that doesn’t derail their progress.

Finally, I have been studying herbal medicine for over 10 years. I have studied Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine and Western Herbalism. Through this study I learned not only the profound ways that plants and herbs can support our health and healing, but I have also learned that the most effective way to utilize herbal medicine is within our daily diet. Everything counts. Our food and drink choices can increase or decrease our feeling of energy, balance, and wellbeing in general. This is why we incorporate herbs and superfoods into our daily diet and into our Honey Child Pops.

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.

I am Sarah Thompson, co-founder of Honey Child Artisan Pops. I am a “body” person. I am a former professional dancer with a background in herbal medicine. My husband and I started dreaming up Honey Child Artisan Pops after a chance encounter with an ice cream truck. It was a beautiful spring day in Chicago. We had just picked up our young daughters from school when we were cornered on a dead end street with the ice cream truck. We wanted a treat for ourselves and our kids but we knew that any choice on that menu board would lead to the same fate- a rush, followed by a crash. We walked home wondering why we couldn’t find treats without all the dairy and sugar. But we didn’t stop there. We started dreaming about what a pop could be if you added in more powerful and life-giving ingredients like superfoods, whole blended fruit, veggies and herbs. We couldn’t find what we were looking for in the marketplace, so we started making them ourselves. We now have over 50 flavors of pops- all free from dairy and cane sugar. You can find us popping up with our carts or on the shelves of retailers like Whole Foods Market, Jungle Jims and Clifton Market as well as a number of other local retailers.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

We started our business in 2019. Our pilot year was small as we were just learning about ourselves and our business as we worked to share our product with our community. With the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, our opportunities to vend at events evaporated as events and festivals were cancelled. We shifted our focus more to our wholesale side- landing on shelf at 1 local Whole Foods Market Store. We had to learn a lot about manufacturing for retail stores during this time. We were fortunate to have some great mentors along the way. We were able to grow in spite of the pandemic. Now we are in 25 grocery retail stores throughout Ohio and Kentucky.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We still make all our own products. We had so much to learn as we took this on. It seemed like the progress was slow. It felt like every time I learned something new, it opened up 50 new questions that I needed to answer. I would spend hours and sometimes days trying to find out about FDA requirements, where to source the best ingredients for the best price, where and how to get our packaging designed and produced and even where to store all that packaging once we had it. We really took our time in creating and designing our packaging. It may have cost us some time on shelf, but I feel it was a great investment. We wanted to try to effectively communicate our story on pack and I believe we have been effective. The challenges continue. As we grow, we will need to find a larger manufacturing space. We are always learning and strive to make something better every day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.honeychildpops.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/honeychildpops/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/honeychildpops/

Image Credits
Damien Thompson Photography