Even the biggest names in business were built from small beginnings. By taking calculated risks and doubling down at the right times, companies like Mars Wrigley and Ferrero Group have become the largest confectionery businesses in the world. But new and emerging brands are proving that there’s still room for new players. Jon Nielsen is co-president of Life is Sweet Brands, who lays claim to up-and-coming confectionery brands like Béquet Caramel and is breathing new life into nostalgic confectionery brands like Candy Buttons. I sat down with Jon to learn more about his family’s journey in candy, what it takes to build a brand, and how they’re differentiating in a massive industry.
Dave Knox: Family business is in your DNA. Were you and your siblings always destined to work together?
Jon Nielsen: Growing up in a family business setting definitely played a role in developing our love of entrepreneurship – and it helped forge our relationships as siblings in ways that we really value today. My brother, sister, and I spent summers working together in family business at young ages. Naturally, we learned about business, but we also learned a great deal about our strengths and weaknesses as individuals, as a family unit, and as a team. I think the key takeaway from our early experiences working together was learning that we were far better off working as a whole than we’d ever be if we were working on our own. We’re a great balance and we’re really lucky to have each other.
Knox: From commercial printing to real estate, and a stint in tech, how did your family end up in candy?
Nielsen: Across four generations now, the common thread for our family has been a love for business and for building brands. Our great grandfather started a candy company in the late 1800’s. The business didn’t survive – but the family’s love for the confectionery industry did. About six years ago we had the opportunity to purchase a small candy company named Doscher’s Candies in our hometown of Cincinnati. Doscher’s is the oldest manufacturer of candy canes in America. That’s the type of brand heritage that we love to get behind. The size of the business was irrelevant because we believed the untapped opportunity drastically outweighed it.
Knox: Your largest brand, Béquet Caramel, is a gourmet confectionery line. But you also manufacture and sell nostalgic candy products like Candy Buttons (formerly of NECCO). What’s the overarching strategy as you’re building your portfolio?
Nielsen: For us, it all comes down to a couple of simple things. We start with products that we love. Selling something you love is a lot easier than the alternative. From the moment we tried Béquet Caramel we knew we had a “tiger by the tail” type of brand on our hands. The product is that good. Secondly, we look for brands that we believe we can add exponential value to. In the case of Candy Buttons, there was this amazingly iconic candy brand…you know, the colored sugar dots on strips of paper…a brand that had been neglected for nearly a century. No focus on the product, the packaging, or the consumer. And no innovation, whatsoever. We’re breathing new life into one of the most fun and distinct candies out there. It’s not rocket science but it does take time and hard work.
Knox: In today’s market, how do smaller manufacturers make a mark in the confectionery industry? Is it hard to compete for shelf space?
Nielsen: Competition in the food and confectionery industries is as fierce as ever. Physical and digital shelf space is incredibly tight and the established players like Mars Wrigley and Mondelēz International aren’t going anywhere. There are breakout stories out there that help us keep our eye on the prize. Companies like Lily’s Sweets, who set out to exploit a void in the traditional candy “set,” validate that there’s room for other players. We think there’s a similar opportunity with Béquet Caramel that feels very sizable. There is no nationally or internationally branded gourmet caramel with widespread distribution and recognition. And the chocolate category, which shares our buyer, is saturated – making it ripe for disruption at the fringes. For us, success comes from getting the product into the mouths of the buyers and the end-consumers. The rest solves itself.
Knox: How do you know when it makes sense to acquire another brand versus investing in the brands that you already own?
Nielsen: A very wise man, my dad, has always said, “sales solves all problems!” Sales and growth-related data tell a big part of the story for a brand and where it’s heading. But we’re also comfortable betting on our gut feelings and intuition. If we can feel that there’s momentum building or there are buy-signs coming from large or strategic customers, we’re going to keep doubling down on the brand. Conversely, if there’s an opportunity to invest in a new brand that might help pull along something that we already own, we’re big fans of that strategy, too. Candy Buttons was the perfect bolt-on in that it actually accelerated the sales of our other nostalgic candy lines like French Chew. Béquet has done the same thing for the Doscher’s peppermint line.
Knox: What was the tipping point for the Béquet Caramel brand?
Nielsen: The Béquet Caramel business was initially built on the backs of specialty and gourmet shops across the country. But in 2019, everything changed when we received interest from Costco. One of their buyers had sampled our caramel at the Fancy Foods Show out in San Francisco the year before, and she revisited our both in 2019 for another taste. We are so grateful for the relationship that developed coming out of that food show. The buyer knew we were small and she knew that we’d need help learning how to work in the Club channel, but she believed in our product, in our team’s ability to execute, and in the opportunity that our caramel presented for her customers. The only problem was that we had no idea how we’d make so much caramel at one time.
Until then, our team was used to selling 12 gift bags of caramel at a time; that was a typical order a couple of years ago. Well, Costco likes to order by the truckload. So we had to figure out how to scale up quickly. Fortunately, in addition to a killer caramel recipe, the very best thing we inherited when we acquired Béquet Confections was the team. We have an amazing team, filled with people of varied interests and backgrounds, but everyone is committed to the same goal of putting the very best caramel in the world into as many mouths as possible. It’s a pretty simple mission and it empowered our organization to chase the opportunity and do whatever it took to make it happen.
Thanks to a lot of hard work, and terrific guidance from that first buyer, we delivered on the purchase order and the strong sales results garnered interest from other buyers across the country. The course of our business was changed forever by that one food show…that one sample…that one buyer…that one purchase order.
Knox: What advice do you give to entrepreneurs that are aspiring to scale a CPG brand like Béquet Caramel?
Nielsen: My siblings and I will be the first to tell any aspiring entrepreneur that there’s no single path to success. And not every hit is going to be a homerun. Ultimately, we’re big believers in trying to do things the right way. Sometimes the right way may not be the fastest way – and we’ve learned that lesson the hard way before. If the pieces of the puzzle aren’t all there, you have to find them and put them into place before your foundation is ready to handle the growth.
And no matter how great your product is, your service is, or your brand is, you’re going to need a great team to build anything of size or real significance. One of the best pieces of advice we ever received was, “surround yourselves with people who are brighter and more capable than you are.” I’d add two additional qualifiers to that…make sure they’re people who are trustworthy and fun to work with.