Edible Flowers Make for Delicious Business

When Kristen Kapoor and Theresa Halliburton became neighbors, they weren’t looking to go into business together. Kapoor was was on a career break from investment banking to raise her kids, and Halliburton was running a custom fragrance shop in downtown Denver before stepping away from that to focus on her family. The neighbors and hostesses’ lives became intertwined as their children became best friends and they ended up starting a custom cheese and charcuterie board business in 2018.

Though the boards were not a runaway hit, the special touches that set them apart gained the duo some devoted fans. Halliburton is both a stellar baker and avid gardener, so she combined her two loves by baking edible flowers into crackers for their boards to give them more visual intrigue. As a thank-you to their meat and cheese purveyor, the pair brought in a box of crackers and immediately had their first customers. “If you want to make these, we will sell more of them than you can ever bake,” said that one account.

So, at the end of 2019, they decided to take the plunge.

Flouwer Co.’s crackers were soon being served in hotels and restaurants, but because they used a distributor, consumers had no idea about the brand behind the product. The two women were just about to launch their own branded crackers in grocery stores when the pandemic hit.

With hundreds of boxes of crackers they had planned on selling to stores, the pair had to find a different solution.

The answer was social media and word of mouth. In the end, they gained more wholesale customers, bigger accounts and even interest from Whole Foods.

Two years later, their crackers are still made by hand, and they’ve expanded into their own full-time manufacturing facility that will also house a retail store next door. The edible flowers originally came from a farm in Idaho, but after nearly exhausting that producer’s supply, they’ve switched to a new farm in northern Colorado with even more varieties to utilize.

Though it hasn’t been easy to get their product into the hands of retailers or consumers, once people try Flouwer Co. crackers they’re amazed by the little bit of luxury and intrigue edible flowers bring to the table without any extra work on the part of the host or hostess. The women who have since expanded their product offerings to include cocktail cubes and finishing sugars.

“It gives a wow, but it’s so simple,” said Kapoor. Because the cocktail cubes are floral infused, they can be dropped in a glass of champagne or muddled with seltzer for a little extra flavor and fun, she explained. Plus, the orange blossom marigold cube makes a killer Old Fashioned. The finishing sugars, and one floral garden salt, are also great for rimming cocktail glasses (Kapoor is partial to a lavender margarita) or even sprinkling on cookies for a bit of glamor.

Next up for this inventive duo is a retail store where they can sell their entire line of products directly to consumers along with testing out new products (they’ve been working on granola) rather than going straight to their wholesale customers. “Our tagline is from garden to gathering,” said Kapoor, “So we just want to include flowers in everything, because doing so elevates and simplifies home dining with just some simple, fun stuff.”