Indie Candy makes sweet treats that anyone can eat!
Indie Candy makes sweet treats that anyone can eat
By William Thornton -- The Birmingham News
January 16, 2010, 5:30AM
Hanson Watkins makes pomegranate candy in her shop at 73 Church St. in Mountain Brook, where she specializes in allergen-free sweets. (The Birmingham News/Linda Stelter)
Life isn't very sweet without sweets.
Hanson Watkins was in culinary school when she was diagnosed with gluten intolerance, which meant she couldn't taste her final project. Her son has a food allergy, which made it disappointing when he was invited to four different birthday parties and couldn't participate in them.
Now Watkins is the owner of Indie Candy, a Mountain Brook confectionery specializing in allergen-free gourmet candy. In addition to selling the candy retail, she also has a wholesale business providing gluten-free, casein-free and peanut-free candies to outlets around the country.
For example, her old-fashioned gummies range in price from $1.20 to $1.99 per package. The shop's nut-free chocolate lollipops, in dinosaur and princess shapes, sell for $2.50 per pop. Indie carries nut-free truffles for $2 per piece. The shop also keeps an assortment of "pick a piece" candies that range from a nickel to a quarter per piece for an old-time candy store feel.
A business is born
It wasn't long after her doctor suggested she go on a wheat-free diet that Watkins began thinking about opening her own candy business.
"I'm one of those people who write business plans for fun," she said. "I come from a family of serial entrepreneurs."
Just to get a feel for the marketplace, she began calling businesses and online retailers to compare prices and see what kind of products they might be seeking. By the time she got off the phone, though, she had orders.
"We had to get in high gear quickly," she said. "We made 400 to 500 units and sold those in less than a week."
The reason for the demand, Watkins said, is the need for niche candies in a business where most goods are mass-produced. Large candy makers can't justify manufacturing small quantities of allergen-free candy because of cost effectiveness. And some severe food allergies require a "clean" manufacturing process -- machines and a workplace free of the allergen.
"That's not profitable at the level they're used to," Watkins said. "We're not trying to compete with big commercial candy makers. What we have is a novelty item, and it supports a different price structure." This independent streak is what gave her business its name.
Allergies on rise
And as Watkins' family demonstrates, there is a demand. Researchers aren't sure about the causes, but they agree that food allergies are on the rise in the U.S. According to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, a patient support group, more than 12 million Americans have food allergies, or 4 percent of the population.
That number includes 3 million children. For example, from 1997 to 2002, the number of peanut allergies diagnosed in children doubled. Other major food allergies include milk, eggs, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat and soy. Doctors are also recognizing certain food intolerances, such as to gluten, a protein found in pasta and bread, and casein, prevalent in milk and cheese.
Once Watkins had her wholesale business running, it took her about six months before she found a storefront in Crestline Village for her candy store. In the meantime, she was able to make some of the equipment needed to produce her candy.
"What we did was a kind of reverse engineering," she said. "We tried to match our level of automation with the size of our market. And we made our equipment so we could manufacture the candy the old way, before it became mass produced."
