Inspiring Conversations with Amy Kirkpatrick of Too Haute Cowgirls Popcorn

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Kirkpatrick.

Hi Amy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My late partner, Deanna, and I founded Too Haute Cowgirls in Aspen, Colorado, over 10 years ago. It all started with a gold-dusted chocolate-covered caramel corn bridal favor for her successful wedding cake business. I had just finished an intensive pastry arts program at what is now the Escoffier School in Boulder, and I became Deanna’s official taste tester (an enjoyable job if you can get it!). She presented me with this chocolate-covered creation, and I fell in love, and a business was born. I love popcorn and eat it almost every day, so I can’t think of an item I’m more well-suited to sell! We spent six months creating our first flavors and our first packaging designs. From there, we got our first wholesale customer with Susan’s Flowers in Basalt, Colorado, and the journey hasn’t stopped. Today we can be found coast to coast in specialty boutiques, high-end hotels, catalogs, gift baskets, corporate offices, and online.

Too Haute Cowgirls represent strength, grit, determination, and perseverance. Our name highlights our rugged, unstoppable cowgirl attitude and juxtaposes the Haute ingredients that make our popcorn delicious. Today, we work with a mission to support non-profits that offer education, training, and career and life development skills to help individuals and communities with high barriers to employment and education get ready for work and life. Proceeds benefit to support the jobs and training with our non-profit partners.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’m currently laughing. I wonder if such a ride exists. No. It hasn’t been a smooth ride. It has been: exciting, challenging, exhausting, bone-tiring, tear-inducing, thrilling, rewarding, educational, humbling, and FUN. One of my biggest challenges has been learning to ask for help. I’ve learned it the hard way, and I’m still learning. It’s effortless for me to offer assistance to others but not as easy to ask for it. It takes courage to ask for help, and it’s also intelligent to ask for help because I don’t have all the answers. It requires vulnerability and humility and ultimately produces better results. I still fall into old patterns of thinking I should do it all, and then I remember that I can’t! It leads to burnout and wastes my valuable energy.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are known for sweet popcorn treats. What started as a wedding favor business quickly blossomed into a brand that pays homage to a western ideal of creativity, freedom, grit, and exploration. We craft gourmet sweet popcorn treats that are perfect for gift-giving because of the sweet indulgence wrapped inside the fun packaging. We use natural ingredients; you will not find fake caramel syrups in our recipes! We’re sold through retailers, catalogs, and online, with a healthy portion of our business coming from gift companies, event planners, and corporate gift programs.

Independence is not just a branding theme for us. Independence is a core value that we celebrate in our flavors and, more importantly, our mission. We support organizations serving individuals with barriers to jobs and education and help them get ready for work and life through education, job training, and life-skills development.

What do you think about luck?
What a great question! On the bad luck side, we were chosen by a producer on the NBC Today Show to be featured in a segment about the Sweets and Snacks Candy Show in Chicago, where we were a vendor. I was excited for that kind of exposure, knowing it could have been a tipping point moment for my company. The night before I reported to the set, a catastrophic weather event pulled all news coverage to another state. My impending national editorial coverage also left the state.

That aside, good luck abounds because we are still in business, having fun, creating a product we love, helping people, and doing our best to prepare for opportunities to be lucky every day.

Contact Info:

• Email: contact@toohautecowgirls.com
• Website: https://www.toohautecowgirls.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toohautecowgirls/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toohautecowgirls

Image Credits
Some images by Nancy Ingersoll, The Creative Resource