Ashland startup brings back World’s Best Cheesecake brand

An Ashland startup, WBC Ventures LLC, is bringing back the World’s Best Cheesecake brand, with the official launch Wednesday of WorldsBestCheesecake.com.

Sansbury “Cotton” Sweeney, founder of Sansbury’s Bakery in Arlington, trademarked the brand in 1964 after his customers started calling his cheesecake “the world’s’s best.” Sansbury’s Bakery was acquired in 2004 by John Fernandez of Daystar Desserts, which eventually moved to its current, larger facility in Ashland. Since then, the World’s Best Cheesecake brand has remained dormant for a decade.

Daystar Desserts primarily sells products on the wholesale level, but WBC Ventures plans to sell desserts to consumers through its website and eventually expand to include retailers, corporate gifts and fundraisers. WBC says it soon will expand its offerings to include bar and Mason jar cakes and other desserts.

The World’s Best Cheesecakes are produced at the Daystar Desserts Bakery in Ashland and packaged and shipped from the company’s warehouse facility in Midlothian.

WBC Ventures is a partnership between Daystar Desserts, Mechanicsville-based Data Directions (which produced and maintains the World’s Best Cheesecake website), Midlothian-based BHVA Ventures (which provides shipping and customer service) and Richmond-based Madison + Main (which is in charge of the company’s PR and marketing services).

Dave Saunders, president of Madison + Main, says the company recently started Madison Avenue Investments LLC to invest in startups and says this is its first foray into that.