We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sophia Mendelson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Sophia, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
In addition to making fabulously delicious ice cream, it’s our mission to create sustainable livelihoods and fulfilling career paths in the food service industry. Having worked various food service and farm jobs prior to starting Sugarwitch, as well as studying food systems and this question of equitable labor along the whole food chain, we went into Sugarwitch with sort of this question of “is this possible?” Like, can we run a business that sustains itself while also creating jobs that pay a living wage, offer a lot of room for creativity and responsibility, and don’t take a massive toll on your body like so many food systems jobs often do? Jobs that someone can do for a really long time and still find enjoyable and sustainable? Because if not, then what is really the point of running a company anyway? So we approach Sugarwitch as an experimental vehicle for that kind of livelihood and career creation, just as importantly as it is a vehicle for wonderful ice cream.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
When Martha and I met in 2015, neither of us knew that the other had been making ice cream for years to share with family and friends: it wasn’t in either of our Tinder profiles! But we quickly figured it out, comparing stories of Martha’s family’s summer tradition of fresh peach ice cream eaten straight from the churn and the half-busted Cuisinart machine that I lugged to college with me
To cope with the tumult of the 2016 election, Martha began making ice cream sandwiches. The first flavor she tried was salted caramel ice cream between brownies, and she brought them into work to share with co-workers. While the need for stress-management-via-sweets never really let up, the sandwiches were such a hit that when we both moved to Columbia, MO in 2018 to begin grad school, we decided to try and see if we could transform this coping strategy into a business. We called it Sugarwitch because we couldn’t resist a pun – or the opportunity for a literary twist. Since summer 2019. we’ve been making small batch, from-scratch ice cream sandwiches featuring ultra-premium ice cream and thoughtfully paired cookies that we make with responsibly-sourced ingredients. In summer of 2021, we moved the business to St. Louis, and sold out of an airstream trailer on the Olio patio until we opened our first brick-and-mortar in fall 2022 in the historic Carondelet neighborhood. Our team has grown from just the two of us to include 5 others, and we’ve expanded our offerings to include other frozen novelties like “Queen Cones” and “Waffle Tacos” as well as coffee and tea.
I think the thing we’re most proud of is our team. We are lucky to work with incredibly talented, smart, hard-working people who really care about what we’re doing together. Our staff is incredible, and they each shape the company in very concrete ways. And knowing that they’re happy and excited about the work is pretty much the best feeling.
Any advice for managing a team?
Take people – and their needs, and their talents – seriously. Individual uniqueness is a boon, not something inconvenient to try to squash to fit into impersonal boxes of roles. Our whole organizational structure stems from our staff, rather than the other way around. People who are doing work that excites them do amazing work, so give your team opportunities to shine in the ways that they uniquely shine. And when people have injuries or family events or illnesses, take that seriously too! Giving people the (paid) time and space they need to recover from hard things is really critical to team morale. There has to be a mutualism, not just the goal of extracting labor from people. The company needs to also provide (in multiple ways – monetary compensation, creative opportunities, leadership opportunities…) for the people that make it up.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I think we’ve only ever paid $5 at two separate instances for advertising on social media (and on any advertising to date, for that matter), right when we were getting started. Besides that, it has been entirely organic and relational. I think we connected with people on social media because we learned quickly how to visually capture our product in compelling ways (the clean lines, the cross-section cuts, the bright colors and soft swirls that ice cream offers), and – probably more importantly – because we have always stuck very firmly to our own voices. By which I mean, we bring our full personalities into our posting, and that has been consistent since the beginning. So it means that people feel connected to the personality – the personhood, almost – of Sugarwitch as a company. Beginning this fall, we also hired Kassie King, a dear friend and social media consultant, to assist us with our video presence, as that’s a whole other ball game and something that we have no experience with. And she’s been incredible. So I would say – compelling visuals, a distinctive and sincere voice, and hire Kassie King!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sugarwitchic.com
- Instagram: @sugarwitchic
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/sugarwitchic
- Other: https://sugarwitch-llc.square.site/
Image Credits
Sophie Mendelson, Kassie King