Moe Young ’03 Spreads Joy With Marshmallows

When Maureen “Moe” Young graduated with a biology and biotechnology degree 20 years ago, she never knew her future would include a career that feeds her passions for science and food. Experimenting with flavors, ingredients, and process is part of her everyday activity as founder of Moeshmallows, a custom and gourmet marshmallow company. And while she works with sugar and gelatin instead of cells, her approach isn’t all that different from what she loved about working in a biology lab.

Young sells hand-cut marshmallows in local retail stores, and at pop-up locations out of her red-and-white polka dotted 1972 IV Travel Trailer, a vintage treasure fitted to her specifications. She has swapped cell development for business growth that’s reflected in fanciful flavors like butterbeer, strawberries and champagne—even dill pickle—with textures and colors to match.

Her work, full of experiments and problem solving, isn’t all that different from what she did in labs at WPI and then at Wellesley College, but now she delves into exploring food and science with hefty doses of business and human nature mixed in. “It’s probably why I liked WPI and the terms,” she says. “I like to change things up.”  

When considering college, Young was attracted to WPI because she loved science and felt at home in a lab environment. But she’s always been an avid baker, and at WPI, her interests and science and food began to merge.

Her Major Qualifying Project was focused on the military nutrition division of the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, where her research evaluated how changing military soldiers’ diets could impact their performance in the field. A later project looked at how zinc, known for helping the body repair, could help soldiers recover and get back on track.

An early devotee of baking blogs and an avid reader of cookbooks, Young never shied away from difficult recipes. Fun foods hold a special place in her heart, and when she stumbled across a recipe for marshmallows in 2011, she thought, “Why not?” The squishy, pillowy, almond-flavored results were nothing short of a huge hit. “People were just eating them,” she says, laughing.

That initial flavor has since expanded to include more than 40 flavors and combinations—and she currently churns out 1,000 to 1,600 marshmallows a week.

Interruptions, weather, and the slightest temperature variations can wreck a batch, but they can’t deter Young. As she made more marshmallows for family and friends, she’d hear the same refrain: “‘You could sell these!’”

“Then,” she says, “it became a thing.”

She began selling them at a couple of craft fairs, but with two small kids and full-time work, there wasn’t much time for more. When the pandemic shut down stores, including bakeries, she found many people still yearned for the comfort of home-baked goods. She began offering a monthly box of 8 to 10 goodies, often with a holiday theme, including cookies, brownies, and marshmallows that could be ordered and picked up safely.

Producing a product that people wanted and enjoyed was satisfying, but Young didn’t know if it could be a career move. “It was unique, fun, kind of science-y. I knew how to do everything in the kitchen, but the business side of it? I had no idea.”

She applied and was accepted into EforAll Greater Worcester, a 12-week entrepreneurship training program where she gained an essential understanding of legal issues, business set-up, insurance, and reading the market, among other things.

Since her grand opening in January 2023, her weekends have been packed with weddings, fairs, brunches, and birthday parties. She even appeared at the 2023 Big E in Springfield, Mass. Marshmallows are the obvious draw, but Young offers various goodies that include marshmallow-filled crepes, smiley-face sandwich cookies, churros filled with homemade fluff, cookies, “s’moe” tarts—even marshmallows colored, flavored, and shaped like cider doughnuts.

Her newest menu offering is a fizzy Italian soda-like drink topped with a colorful marshmallow that delights children and transports older customers back to a time when their cares were fewer. “We keep thinking the tagline should be, ‘It makes you feel like a kid again,’” she says.

The pink sanding sugar–dusted marshmallows that top a strawberries and cream soda drink honored the recent Barbie movie, and the charming, swirled colors of a cotton candy flavor (Young’s personal favorite) are as eye-popping as they are palate-pleasing. Adult flavors—margarita, cosmo, gin and tonic, and even beer—are also hot sellers.

While the product itself spreads joy, she wants to do more—and it comes from a personal reason. Young intends to eventually open a storefront or other location (the food truck will remain) where she can start employing folks in the autism community. With a 13-year-old son who has autism, she knows firsthand the great potential he has as a steady employee (he already packs bags for Moeshmallows) and the pitfalls he may face finding employment.

A food truck was not in Young’s life plan, but this path combines everything she really loves—from science to cooking to her family.

“I never would have believed marshmallows would be a thing. I didn’t realize people wanted this,” she says. “I want to bring fun food products to people.”