Mar 11, 2024 7 min read

Anyone who wears braces dreams of the day they can eat their favorite chewy candy again. Freeze-dried candy may be the solution they are looking for.

“This boy came over to my booth and was so excited telling his mom he thought that he could eat my candy,” said Billie Athanas, owner of Sweet as Candy Co., a freeze-dried candy company. “They took a sample and she asked him if he was ok and he was. He had been wearing his braces for six months and had to give up all his favorite candy. It just so happened we had his favorite candy there freeze-dried and he was able to get it.”

Athanas said that freeze-drying the chewy candies removes all the moisture and transforms the candy into almost a crunchy crouton texture that kind of melts in their mouth, allowing people with braces or teeth issues to eat the candy they love without the difficulty of chewing it.

Athanas was introduced to freeze-dried food and candy by a close friend of hers. She was visiting her friend who had her try some food and candy she had been freeze-drying.

“I said, this is really good,” she said. “Then she brought out the nerd gummy clusters. She said ‘I call this Covid candy because it blows up and has little spots on it. I was like alright, let me try one. I was like dang it, now I have to buy a freeze-dryer.”

So, last July she bought a freeze-dryer and started freeze-drying some regular food and candy. “

“People would taste it and say ‘Oh my son has to bring treats into his class, can I buy 25 bags off of you?'” said Athanas. “Or ‘Hey, I am having a baby shower, can I buy 50 containers off of you?’ Then it kind of organically grew from there. I am like a serial entrepreneur, so I was like if I am going to do this, I have to actually do this.”

Athanas had an existing company, The Rustic Lemonade Company, which she sells at local fairs and events.

“I was prepping for a really large show in Bloomsburg and my best friend was helping me,” said Athanas. “She said why don’t we take the freeze-dried candy to the Washington County Fair? I said ‘Ok, let’s just take it’. When people realized we were selling freeze-dried candy at the fair, we sold about 250 bags a day. They went feral over it. People were buying 10 bags at a time.”

After that, she started selling to friends and at vendor events, fairs, craft shows and RV shows, home shows, festivals and any events she could book.

“I first tasted Sweet as Candy products at a local event, and I must say wow,” said Jason Wheeler. “The candy choices and products are so delicious. You can tell Billie truly cares about the products and candies she produces and her love for providing quality products for her customers goes unmatched. Every time we go to an event we seek out Sweet as Candy as a must-have before we leave. Everything we have tried is splendid. If you want to taste something out of this world, you must try Sweet as Candy.”

Athanas started making the candy at home with several freeze dryers under the Cottage law, but wanted to take the business bigger so she started looking for a storefront and found a perfect one at the local mall.

Sweet as Candy is opening her storefront in the former Sbarro Pizza spot located in the food court of the Washington Crown Center.

“It was super affordable, the build-out wasn’t going to be a lot and my biggest interest was having that commercial kitchen,” said Athanas. “In order to ship over state lines from my website, I need to have a commercial license, so having the storefront will take care of that. If I get retail sales, that will be amazing. We are also going into fundraising and wholesaling.”

Her goal is to be open by Kids Fest at the end of March.

Freeze-dried Skittles went viral on TikTok and is all the rage right now, but will the popularity continue?

“I think the candy is always going to sell,” said Athanas. “I think the people who pursue it hard like I am attempting to do, will survive. The people who are just doing it as a novelty will stop it. But we are interested in other things with freeze-drying as well, so we didn’t want to go into a huge buildout for that.”

Alison Mancuso said the flavors of the candy are what appealed to her.

“I recently tried Sweet as Candy’s freeze-dried candies and I was blown away!” said Mancuso. “The texture was so unique and crunchy, and the flavors were incredibly intense. I highly recommend giving them a try if you’re looking for a fun and tasty twist on your favorite candies.”

Typically all of her candy sells for $10 for approximately 5 oz. and are usually packaged in bags or deli containers.

Nick Turner, a customer of Sweet as Candy said eating the candy has provided him with an experience like no other.

“The candies are light and unselfishly sweet,” said Turner.

Sweet as Candy makes about 150 to 200 different varieties of freeze-dried candies and ice creams, but Athanas says the Skittles will forever be her number-one seller.

“That’s what went viral, so everyone is like I have to have them,” said Athanas. “They love them. Freeze-drying intensifies the flavor because it pulls the moisture out. People are super intrigued by the texture. People say some of the candy has the texture of a corn curl. Some say the Skittles remind people of a cereal like Captain Crunch.”

According to Athanas, the only things you can’t freeze-dry are solid chocolate, honey and solid peanut butter.

Freeze-drying candy is a unique way to experience your favorite candy in a new way. She has been looking into sugar-free options upon request.

“Sweet as Candy is a fun and different take on all of our favorite candy,” said Mark Athanas. “It makes us fall in love with it all over again.”

The varieties of freeze-dried candy offered by Sweet as Candy include approximately 50 different kinds of taffy, skittles, gummy worms, jolly ranchers, fruit roll-ups, Bit-o-Honey, Astro Duds, Crunch Bars and more.

“We also roll skittles in different flavorings or coatings to make new flavors,” said Athanas. “We stuff fruit roll-ups with nerd gummy clusters, pop rocks, red hots and marshmallow fluff. We can flavor the marshmallow fluff too, if we want. There are so many different things we can do.”

Freeze-dried ice cream is another big seller for Athanas.

“Ice cream takes forever to do and it sells as soon as I finish making it,” she said. “We are looking into larger machines that we can dedicate to ice cream, so they can just continue to run and we can do a bigger volume.”

In addition to her staple products, she has featured products throughout the year according to the season.

“Right now, I am selling a ton of the Easter Peeps,” said Athanas. “I won’t carry those in July. And I’ll start carrying the caramel apple suckers around Thanksgiving. There will be variants throughout the year, but 25-30 staple products.”

Currently, she has friends and family helping her keep up with the demand, but with the new storefront, she will probably hire a few more people that her family or friends know and trust.

“I need to ensure that the quality and consistency stays a priority,” said Athanas.

In addition to her running her own companies, Athanas and her family own three farms in Washington.

“We run a 501c3 nonprofit for horses, donkeys and cows that were slaughter-bound,” said Athanas. “We are a sanctuary. When we get them, many have behavioral issues, are sick or are hurt. We nurse them back to health, gain their trust and give them training and they don’t ever leave us.”

Visit https://96698e.myshopify.com/ for more information or to order online.

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