Meet Marielle Carbajal Rivera

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marielle Carbajal Rivera.

Hi Marielle, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My husband and I used to live in Little Rock, AR. where we started selling baked goods and fresh salsas and hummus at farmers markets in 2016. In 2018, we met a local jelly maker selling her business. We were already customers and loved the jelly so we decided to buy it. Partly for selfish reasons since we wanted to keep access to the jellies but also because my husband and I both have a passion for pretty much anything that comes out of a kitchen and we wanted to continue doing markets, but not with baked goods.

We became the proud owners and operators of Jelly Madness in April 2018. We kept the original recipes and added new ones of our own. We created a new product line of glazes and syrups and partnered with many markets, boutiques, restaurants, and food trucks in central Arkansas. We made sure to keep the original standards of the business by using fresh, natural, and pure ingredients. Community and supporting local was and is important to us which is why we focused on supporting and partnering directly with local farmers and producers to source our fruit, berries, and peppers.

Fast forward to 2020, we’ve become parents at the onset of a pandemic and decided to pack up our lives and move to Colorado to be closer to family. We landed in Colorado Springs and spent two years settling in before we were back in a place where we could begin to think about cooking and selling again. We started identifying local Colorado farmers, producers, and markets to partner with and re-launch Jelly Madness.

In 2022, we were able to find a “home” in a commercial kitchen where we make everything. We were welcomed by The Backyard Market in Black Forest, Colorado for our first farmer’s market and have Spread the Madness to Colorado ever since!

In 2023, we partnered with 5 Colorado family farms to source our fruit, juices, and peppers, exclusively used Amen Packaging in Denver to source our jars and lids and worked with a local artist to help us redesign our labels. We’ve also focused on our wholesale business to other local stores, businesses, boutiques, and providers like Pinemelon out of Denver.

We’re super excited to see what we can do in 2024 with the support of the local families and businesses that we partner with.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been mostly smooth, thankfully. Coming from central Arkansas, we’ve never had issues sourcing great, fresh produce.

That said, in Colorado some things just don’t grow or don’t grow in abundance. For example, last year we couldn’t make one of our most popular flavors, Strawberry Cranberry Jalapeno because the only strawberry farms we know of didn’t produce any because of the weather.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The thing we are most proud of is partnering with local Colorado farms and producers to get and use simple high-quality ingredients. We go out of our way to ensure we get the best produce around and if we don’t find it we just don’t make that flavor.

The farms we worked with in 2023 were:

Product Farm
Jalapeno Padilla Produce
Habaneros Padilla Produce
Peaches The Farmer’s Daughter/Saims Fruit
Blackberries Smith Family Gardens/Mountain Freshies
Pears Palasides Peach Shack
Apple Juice Big B’s Fruit Company
Champagne Colorado Cellars Winery

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
My husband and I share a passion for cooking and eating different types of foods.

We like to explore flavors and are open to trying different types of things. So when we met, we met because of his great cooking skills at a potluck.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jellymadnessar/