Partner Spotlight: Salt and Straw 🍦

1. At Spread The Love Foods, our community means the world to us. What we love most about Salt and Straw is that you bring people together with a scoop. Please tell us what magic formula you use to bring people together and why this is so important to you.

Connecting with our communities and getting to take them on taste adventures is really what drives us and gets us up each day excited to go to work. We love showcasing the talents of our favorite artisan makers, farmers and brewers and more.  Bringing all of these things together at a neighborhood spot with the care and attention of our team members is where the magic happens.

2. Like us, Salt and Straw uses the highest quality ingredients possible to make incredible food products. Can you tell us more about how you view ice cream as a blank slate for storytelling?

We love using our ice cream as a canvas to talk about amazing things happening in the food scene. From spotlighting incredible makers to featuring ingredients local to the cities we scoop in, we get to play with different flavors and serve ingredients that our guests have never tasted before, while still being grounded in something that’s as inherently approachable as ice cream. It’s incredibly freeing.

3. Every time we visit your stores in the LA area, we have the best time connecting with our friends and family. Now that things are somewhat going back to normal, how are you looking to welcome people back to your stores in order to make them feel special & safe at the same time?

We so look forward to continuing to welcome guests into our shops, while adhering to the local government and CDC guidelines to ensure a safe experience for all. 

4. We love your dazzling rotation of artisan flavors! Every time we visit your store or visit online, we’re in for a tasty surprise. What is it that you love most about partnering with other businesses like Spread The Love Foods to create your new flavors?

Working with farmers, artisans, makers and other businesses allows us to see the world through a different lens. It encourages us to continuously try new combinations and bring new flavors into the spotlight. When you’re in the collaboration process, you come up with a better product. It’s endlessly rewarding and inspiring, and we can’t imagine making ice cream any other way. 

5. At Spread the Love Foods, we feel lucky to do what we love and be able to spread that love forward through scholarships. We understand that Salt and Straw also supports their local community. What is one thing that you are doing for your neighbors right now, that you are most proud of?

We truly believe a strong business can’t exist without a strong community, so we work with many local organizations to national groups supporting equity efforts for rights, hunger or education. Giving back to these groups creates a stronger foundation for us to succeed. We just had our first Rad Readers series during June. To kick-off off this menu and the first days of summer vacation, we knew we had to celebrate some of the most incredible people who have gone above and beyond throughout COVID-19. All teachers who visited our shops were treated to a scoop on us as our small way of saying thank you. We also donated 10 community libraries in underserved neighborhoods around the U.S. by partnering with Free Little Library. 

Being that June is also National Pride Month, we partnered with Drag Queen Story Hour to bring a little magic to everyone by sharing fun stories, songs, and the power of community with Instagram Live shows throughout the month. And in a year when so much was disrupted, you know we had to take it one step further - so we hosted our very first “Fiction to Flavor” Contest, where kids all across the country could flex their creativity by submitting their very own short story to be turned into ice cream. We’re currently working on these flavors now to share with the winners and can’t wait for them to see the power (and deliciousness) of their own creations!