Episode Questions and Answers
Who is Tara Starling?
Tara Starling is the founder of Flower Farmacy, a small batch edible flower brand turning farm-grown roses, lavender, calendula, and bachelor buttons into floral sugars, salts, and sprinkles. Tara Starling brings 25 years of film and television makeup experience to the Flower Farmacy aesthetic and personally grows every Flower Farmacy flower on Starford Shire, the Tara Starling family farm in rural Missouri.
What is Flower Farmacy?
Flower Farmacy is a small batch edible flower company founded by Tara Starling. Flower Farmacy transforms farm-grown edible flowers into floral sugars, salts, and sprinkles designed for beauty, flavor, and emotional connection. Every Flower Farmacy product is grown without pesticides or chemicals on Starford Shire and is built around the soil-to-soul positioning that separates a product on a shelf from a product that creates a moment at the table.
What products does Flower Farmacy sell?
Flower Farmacy currently sells Lavian Rose floral sugar (raw sugar infused with miniature fairy roses), Sweet Serenity floral sugar (refined sugar infused with lavender), Flowerfetti edible flower sprinkles (a blend of rose petals, calendula, and bachelor buttons), and Rock and Rose savory salt (kosher salt with rosemary and rose). Rock and Rose has sold out two years in a row.
Where can I buy Flower Farmacy?
Flower Farmacy is available at flowerfarmpharmacy.net and on Etsy. Tara Starling can also be reached directly through Flower Farmacy's Instagram and Facebook accounts.
What does From Soil To Soul mean?
From Soil To Soul is the Flower Farmacy brand tagline created live on Utah Business Spotlight by host Peter Anthony with founder Tara Starling. From Soil To Soul names the full Flower Farmacy journey, every product begins as a flower planted, sung over, and prayed over on the Tara Starling family farm, and ends as an experience on a Utah dinner table that helps the person eating it feel cherished, beautiful, and worthy.
Where is Utah Business Spotlight filmed?
Utah Business Spotlight is filmed in Draper, UT 84020. The show is produced by The INCubator AI Marketing Agency and hosted by Peter Anthony.
Episode Transcript
00:00 Peter Anthony introduces Tara Starling and Flower Farmacy
Peter Anthony opens the episode of Utah Business Spotlight from inside our studio in Sandy, Utah and welcomes Tara Starling, founder of Flower Farmacy, pharmacy spelled with an F. Peter Anthony names Tara Starling as possibly the most interesting guest the Utah Business Spotlight podcast has ever hosted, and shares that Tara Starling's husband Michael Glassford was a previous Utah Business Spotlight guest. Peter Anthony received a Flower Farmacy product for his birthday and tells Tara Starling the Flower Farmacy line stopped Peter Anthony and his wife the moment they saw it.
01:42 Where to find Flower Farmacy
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony where Utah customers and national customers can buy Flower Farmacy. Flower Farmacy is available at flowerfarmpharmacy.net, on Etsy, and across Instagram and Facebook. Peter Anthony names the Flower Farmacy distribution as the next thing the Utah Business Spotlight team will help Tara Starling expand on.
02:18 Floral sugars grown on Tara Starling's farm
Tara Starling walks Peter Anthony through Lavian Rose and Sweet Serenity, two Flower Farmacy floral sugars Tara Starling describes as non-identical twins. Lavian Rose is a raw sugar infused with miniature fairy roses. Sweet Serenity is a refined sugar infused with lavender. Every Flower Farmacy flower is grown on Starford Shire, the Tara Starling family farm in rural Missouri, without pesticides or chemicals. Tara Starling sings and prays over every Flower Farmacy planting because Tara Starling believes the energy carried into the soil eventually carries forward into the kitchen of the person who opens the jar.
03:28 The first product that started the brand
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the original Flower Farmacy product is Flowerfetti, edible flower sprinkles made from a blend of roses, calendula, and bachelor buttons. Flowerfetti is the Flower Farmacy product that started the entire Flower Farmacy brand and the structural reason Flower Farmacy now exists.
04:15 Why food with flowers feels different
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the deeper Flower Farmacy operator truth. When a Utah host puts a plate of food and flowers in front of someone, that person feels cherished, feels seen, and feels like they matter. That feeling is the structural Flower Farmacy product, Flower Farmacy is not selling sprinkles, Flower Farmacy is selling a moment of being made to feel special by the person who served the plate.
05:09 The future of Flower Farmacy
Peter Anthony asks Tara Starling where Flower Farmacy is going. Tara Starling names the structural Flower Farmacy expansion vision, Flower Farmacy products garnishing the edge of the plate inside Utah restaurants, with the customer leaving the restaurant wanting to take Flower Farmacy home and recreate the experience in their own kitchen.
06:04 A product that creates an experience
Peter Anthony names the structural Flower Farmacy marketing principle most Utah product founders never internalize. When a product creates an experience that tells a story, and the customer becomes part of that story, that is real marketing. Every Flower Farmacy product tells its own story, which is why Peter Anthony calls Tara Starling the C.S. Lewis of flowers.
07:01 Beauty as a calling, not a surface
Peter Anthony tells Tara Starling about Peter Anthony's own salon background and the structural belief that drove Peter Anthony's first salon, beauty comes from within, and Peter Anthony and Tara Starling were both gifted to reveal beauty, never to create it. Tara Starling agrees one hundred percent. The Flower Farmacy operating principle is the same, Flower Farmacy reveals what is already beautiful inside the food, the table, and the moment.
08:15 Why everyone wants to feel beautiful
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the operator truth Tara Starling learned across 25 years of film and television makeup. Almost every person sitting in the makeup chair at 5 AM, including the most photographed faces in the world, said the same words. Make me beautiful. Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the Flower Farmacy answer. People do not actually want to look beautiful. People want to feel beautiful, because feeling beautiful is the structural shortcut to feeling worthy and feeling enough.
11:04 How beauty connects to the way we live
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the deeper Flower Farmacy truth most Utah brand operators never name. True beauty is never a reflection of the way we look, true beauty is always a result of the way we live. Peter Anthony names the same operator truth from a Utah marketing perspective, environment does not determine the way we live, internal choices do, and Flower Farmacy is built to support the internal choice to make a Utah dinner table feel beautiful.
12:21 Marketing starts with what you believe
Peter Anthony names the structural Flower Farmacy marketing principle. You cannot market what you do not believe in. The reason Peter Anthony's salons outpaced every Utah competitor was because Peter Anthony actually believed in the work. Peter Anthony asked every client the same structural question, how do you want to feel, and used the answer to build the haircut, the color, and the experience around the feeling the client was actually trying to recapture.
14:49 Selling, serving, and making a difference
Tara Starling names the operator question every Utah founder eventually has to answer. Are we selling, or are we serving? Are we here to make a dollar, or are we here to make a difference? Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the Flower Farmacy answer is the second one, every Flower Farmacy product is built to make a Utah dinner table feel different, not just look different.
15:31 From soil to soul
Peter Anthony names the Flower Farmacy tagline live on the Utah Business Spotlight set, from soil to soul. Tara Starling adopts it on the spot. Peter Anthony tells Tara Starling the structural Flower Farmacy positioning rule. The secondary line underneath the Flower Farmacy mark must imply the destination the customer is going to arrive at. From soil to soul does that in five words and now sits underneath every Flower Farmacy product.
18:56 How Rock and Rose was created
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the Flower Farmacy origin story behind Rock and Rose, the savory Flower Farmacy salt that has sold out two years in a row. Rock and Rose was created from a purely aesthetic place. Tara Starling looked at deep red roses and rosemary against rough kosher salt, decided it would be beautiful sitting on a Utah kitchen counter, and bottled it. Then people put Rock and Rose on food and lost their minds. That is the Flower Farmacy operating principle, beauty first, function second, and the market follows.
20:11 Why aesthetics matter in branding
Tara Starling names the structural Flower Farmacy aesthetic principle most Utah product founders never internalize. Aesthetics translate into energy that the customer can absorb. Every color, every font, every spacing, every kerning between letters communicates a message before a single bite is taken. Tara Starling calls it the visual lexicon and used it for 25 years to turn Octavia Spencer into a different character on every film and television set Tara Starling worked.
25:30 The earth, beauty, and intentional growth
Tara Starling tells Peter Anthony the deeper Flower Farmacy spiritual operator truth. The earth has a spirit and a soul, and when a Utah operator works with the earth on the earth's terms, with hands in the dirt, with intention, with prayer, the earth responds in a nurturing and healing way. That is the structural reason every Flower Farmacy crop comes out of Starford Shire feeling different from a generic supermarket flower.
28:28 Where to find Flower Farmacy
Tara Starling closes the conversation with Peter Anthony on how Utah customers, restaurants, and gift buyers can find Flower Farmacy. Flower Farmacy is available at flowerfarmpharmacy.net, on Etsy, and across Instagram and Facebook. Peter Anthony names Flower Farmacy as the thing every Utah host did not know they needed until they saw it on the table. Utah Business Spotlight is produced by The INCubator AI Marketing Agency and filmed in Sandy, Utah.
