Interview with Alycia Mason
Images Courtesy of Joey Tesh at Microscopic Bitty Productions

Alycia Mason, owner of the family-bustle store Candycopia in Oak Park, Illinois, discusses her shop’s novel methodology to helping americans spherical the nation peek fascinating novel chocolates.

What impressed you to beginning your online enterprise?

Candycopia modified into as soon as born out of our belief that no crew is complete with out a sweet store. My family enjoys visiting local ones while we’re on vacation, and it’s continually a highlight to understand our kids’ faces rob away darkness from while they’re strolling the aisles and discovering novel chocolates. My husband Patrick and I in actuality take care of Oak Park and felt take care of a sweet store here would make a gargantuan addition to the build since there are so powerful of young families, tourists, and moderately a number of tiny, self reliant agencies. We’re first-time enterprise owners, and we simply wished to pour our vitality into a endeavor that can dangle a clear impact on our crew and make americans cushty. Now we’re getting to complete correct that; even our daughters, Campbell and Addison, dangle a gamble to work within the store and abet potentialities stumble on novel chocolates.

What makes your shop novel?

Our commitment to vary and discovery. We offer an unmatched option of extinct-long-established chocolates to boot to world classics and novelty objects, and we attempt to highlight diverse-owned agencies and tiny-batch producers. About 40 p.c of our inventory is tiny-batch chocolates from candymakers most folk would dangle in no plan skilled earlier than. We present the tales of every person we inventory, helping americans study extra about them and what they make.

Extra, our storefront is designed to be interactive and enable potentialities to dangle extra of an skills versus correct procuring sweet. It’s a residence for exploration, discovery, and indulgence. Take our sweet bar: mates can sit down and skills a sweet or chocolate flight, make their have ice cream fling, or bask in a sweet-impressed ice cream sundae. We’ve furthermore created moderately a number of sweet challenges—together with bitter, intriguing, and horror factor (which factors sweet with bugs!)—to boot to a sweet quest that is a combine of blind-rating tastings and a scavenger hunt spherical the store. They’re every a relaxing means of discovering novel treats and making recollections together with your cherished ones.

Past that, we ship to all fifty states, and we rob gargantuan care when shipping our chocolates, significantly soft objects take care of chocolates. So within the event you repeat a curated chocolate flight in a warm-climate month, as an illustration, we’ll employ chilly packs to retain the precise temperature precise by means of transit, guaranteeing that the chocolates design in best condition despite the local climate.

What dwell you skills most about being within the sweet industry?
One of the best segment is the constant alternative to bring smiles and sweet moments to our potentialities’ lives, whether it’s helping someone get a treat for themselves or a cherished one, making an event a little bit bit tastier, or creating a moderately a number of in-store skills for families. Sweet incites joy in americans, and it’s gargantuan to be a segment of that.

How dwell you take care of present with trends?

It involves constant study and engagement with the broader sweet crew. We listen to our potentialities’ suggestions, befriend expos to study what’s going on internal the industry, and even stumble on social media web sites to rating an opinion of what buyers are drawn to. We’ve constantly considered that TikTok has an extraordinarily tall influence on the sorts of treats kids and young adults wish to aquire. As an illustration, bitter chocolates (significantly gummies), freeze-dried chocolates, and Swedish gummies are all rising in reputation in consequence of of social media trends. So we’ve worked these objects into our in-store and online picks to appeal to buyers and abet them peek extra alternate suggestions they could now not get in moderately a number of areas.

Which chocolates dangle confirmed to be the most well-favored?

Within the store, our bestsellers are the 170 forms of bulk bars and chocolates, any of the Chocs ‘N Containers objects, the Dallas Caramel Company caramels, and our moderately a number of world sweet alternate suggestions. Online, our top sellers are our a huge number of forms of freeze-dried chocolates, cotton sweet, Chamoy Jam Kits [a mix of various Mexican candies], and Barnett Mega Sours [the world’s sourest candy].

With Halloween bobbing up, what treats would you suggest americans attempt?

That it’s seemingly you’ll presumably’t hurry execrable with caramel apples, the rest pumpkin or apple cider flavored, and even our gummy physique parts!

For added recordsdata, hurry to candycopia.com or educate @candycopia on social media

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