April Harris, an original member of the pop and R&B girl group Seduction, now runs Keeping You Sweet, which sells vegan, gluten-free and naturally sweetened desserts. Photo: Courtesy of Keeping You Sweet
Paterson native April Harris never expected to have a food business. She watched her mother run a food and catering company, and she “saw how hard it is to maintain it, how labor intensive it is, and how easy [and hard] it can be to make money,” she says.
Harris is a former pop star; the summer after graduating from Howard University, she joined the pop and R&B girl group Seduction. The original members—Harris, Michelle Visage and Idalis DeLeón—put out their only album, Nothing Matters Without Love, featuring the hit song “Two to Make It Right,” in 1989. She still performs today, years after the band split in 1993.
After her mother’s death in 2011, the only thing that gave her peace and comfort was seeing her mother’s handwriting in her recipe books. So Harris spent her time baking, often donating her goods to fundraisers, and, eventually, selling them at farmers markets. She soon started a business, naming it Keeping You Sweet.
“I’m vegan, I believe in clean ingredients, and I’m also gluten free, but my mom was not,” Harris says. She “remixed the ingredients” to be inclusive of dietary restrictions. Her clean treats were in such high demand that, by 2017, she had partnered with Whole Foods and was selling her baked goods in about 30 stores.
In November 2022, Keeping You Sweet opened a kiosk inside the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, selling her 100 percent vegan, gluten-free and naturally sweetened desserts.
It’s been popular, says Harris, with its bestsellers her full- and mini-sized sweet potato, piña colada, and chocolate brownie cheesecakes, as well as her custom cakes.
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