Poppa’s Custard Company 2024: “Served Cold But Not Frozen!”

Josh Johnson, founder of Poppa’s Custard Company, launched the business in 2020 alongside his wife Christen and renowned sister, Chef Jewel. A native New Yorker with a background in business strategy and operations, Josh’s passion for connecting with people through food inspired him to bring their premium, allergen-friendly desserts to the public. Together with Christen, who oversees communications and marketing, and Chef Jewel, a celebrated pastry chef, they have built a family business rooted in love and community. DeliveryRank finds out more.

Josh, what inspired you to start Poppa’s Custard Company during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how did the idea of creating premium custards come about?

My sister, Chef Jewel Johnson, my wife Christen, and I are the co-founders of Poppa’s Custard. The idea for the business came to life after a significant loss in our family. At the start of the pandemic, we lost my Aunt ?? during the first wave of COVID-19. She was the heart of our family—the one who hosted all the gatherings, from fish fries to Thanksgiving dinners. Aunt ?? was not only a gracious host but also a skilled maker. She hand-crocheted blankets for our babies, bottled her own sauces, and created beautiful, handmade gifts like crocheted pillows with personalized tags. She had a special way of infusing love and care into everything she made.

In honor of her legacy and to find a way to spend more time together as a family, we decided to bring one of my sister’s pastry cream recipes to market. What began as a simple idea—taking a beloved recipe and sharing it with others—quickly turned into something more. While it’s conceptually simple, executing it perfectly was a challenge we knew we could meet. We also saw it as an opportunity to use our collective organizational and professional skills while creating something meaningful together.

What started as a way to connect as a family soon grew organically. We began selling at farmers' markets, and the response was overwhelming. People found our custard to be transcendent, truly game-changing. Encouraged by the feedback, we decided to take the business full-time last year, and now we’re working on landing our first major commercial partnerships to take Poppa’s Custard to the next level.

How does Poppa’s Custard distinguish itself from other dessert options on the market, especially considering your commitment to using whole ingredients free from gluten, soy, peanuts, and tree nuts?

What we create at Poppa’s Custard is unlike anything else on the market. We specialize in gourmet pastry creams, the kind you’d find in a premium vanilla custard for a crème brûlée at a top-tier restaurant. Our custards serve multiple purposes—they can be used as dips, spreads, or fillings, and they offer a level of versatility that sets us apart. For example, you can take our Vanilla Bliss custard, use it as the base for crème brûlée, and serve it at the highest level of culinary expression. In fact, some restaurateurs have done exactly that, using our custard to craft dishes served at prestigious venues like The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, which is on par with The Met in New York.

We differentiate ourselves through the quality, utility, and accessibility of our product. Currently, we're expanding our food service side, partnering with top-tier caterers and food service establishments. My sister, Chef Jewel Johnson, is another key part of our distinction. As the head of pastry at Dirty French in New York City, an upscale restaurant, and a Food Network champion who has beaten Bobby Flay, she brings unmatched expertise and pedigree to the brand.

Moreover, our custard simply tastes better. We take pride in the purity of our product, the depth of flavor, and the culinary craftsmanship behind it. What truly sets us apart is that nothing else exists on the market quite like what we offer. You could go to a high-end restaurant, pay for parking, order dessert, and pay $15-16 for a beautiful crème brûlée—or you could buy a jar of Poppa’s Custard, caramelize the sugar yourself, and enjoy a dessert of the same exceptional quality right at home. Whether you're a home cook or a professional chef, if you want to execute a dessert idea with the same quality you'd find in any high-end restaurant, Poppa’s Custard is the answer.

Can you share the process behind developing both your dairy and vegan custard recipes, and how you ensure that both options maintain the same rich flavor and silky texture?

Absolutely. We initially focused on developing the dairy-based products, beginning with the pastry cream. However, we soon expanded into vegan options in response to customer feedback. Many of our customers expressed that while they loved our products, they couldn’t enjoy them due to lactose intolerance, dietary restrictions, or a preference for a vegan or dairy-free lifestyle. This feedback was crucial to our decision to offer alternatives.

My sister, who spent about three to four years as a pastry chef in an exclusively vegan restaurant, brought a wealth of experience in vegan pastry-making and cooking. Her expertise made it possible for us to explore vegan options while maintaining the high standards of flavor and quality that define our products.

To ensure consistency, all of our flavor components remain the same across both dairy and vegan products. For instance, the vanilla we use in our 'Vanilla Bliss' dairy custard is the exact same vanilla used in our vegan 'Vanilla Coconut' custard. The same goes for our chocolate-based products—our dairy 'Chocolate Decadence' uses high-fat Dutched cocoa, and this exact cocoa is used in the vegan 'Chocolate Coconut' custard.

The primary challenge lay in developing a base for the vegan options that could support the flavors and provide a similar textural experience to a classic dairy-based pastry cream. Once we mastered the base, it became much more straightforward to incorporate our signature flavors. However, it took a fair amount of time and experimentation to perfect that vegan base, constantly tweaking and improving along the way

How has your diverse background in business, community building, and culinary arts influenced the development and growth of Poppa’s Custard?

My sister’s background in culinary arts has really given us the ability to create unique and innovative flavors that stand out in the market—flavors that many of our competitors simply don’t offer. For example, we’ve developed a vegan dragon fruit biscuit custard that’s not only delicious, whether you're vegan or not, but it’s also something completely original. No one else has a dragon fruit biscuit flavor. We also have a gingerbread custard and a fall pies custard, which is a bespoke creation that takes pumpkin spice to a whole new level, almost turning it up to a 15! These are premium products that set us apart.

From a business standpoint, having a bit of formal education and experience in these areas has helped us avoid some of the common pitfalls that many entrepreneurs face. Of course, there are always bumps in the road and lessons to learn, but we've been able to avoid some basic mistakes. Things like ensuring our bookkeeping is solid, making sure our paperwork is in order, and having a capable CPA to handle our taxes on time—these are simple yet critical aspects of running a business that can trip you up if you're not careful. We've made sure to stay on top of these administrative elements so that everything runs smoothly.

On the community-building front, it's all about engagement—how we connect with our audience and grow the base of people who have tasted Poppa’s custard, understand what we're about, and appreciate what we’re trying to build. This focus on community and connection has really been a key factor in our growth over the past four years.

As a black and majority women-owned family business, what challenges have you faced, and how have these experiences shaped the values and mission of Poppa’s Custard Company?

I believe one of the main challenges we've faced is access to capital. At the very beginning of this process, we attempted to raise funds, but it wasn’t successful. Most of the investors and entities we spoke with wanted to see us demonstrate more market capability. It can be frustrating when you see other businesses, whether in the same sector or different ones, securing funding, but access to capital remains a significant hurdle.

Additionally, there is still a bit of political sensitivity in the U.S. around openly stating that a business is Black-owned or women-owned. While it's infrequent, we do occasionally encounter comments about it. For instance, I was at an event a few months ago (not a farmers market), and someone jokingly asked, "Why does it have to be a Black-owned business? Why can't it be Puerto Rican-owned?" I simply explained that, well, I’m Black, my family is Black, and we own the business, so by definition, that's what it is.

These kinds of remarks happen from time to time, but they don't overshadow the bigger picture. When we started this business, our guiding principle was to share who we are—our family and our business—with the world. It’s a significant part of our identity, much like when you go to an Italian restaurant where the family’s heritage is a central aspect of the experience. It’s who we are, and that authenticity is what we bring to the table.

If you would like to find out more about Poppa’s Custard Company, please visit https://poppascustard.com/