We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cara Carter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I think it takes a lot of very hard work, patience, tears both of joy and frustration. It takes dedication and passion. You have to love what you are doing. You may have times you don’t like it but ultimately you love everything about it.
Cara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Hi, my name is Cara Carter and I am the owner and confectioner of Sunshine Caramel Company. I grew up in here in Cincinnati and also raised my one son Maxwell here. For the past twenty years I have had a career in Medical Home Care sales. I was a single mom raising my son alone and having a job in sales allowed me a unique flexibility to be more present in his life. Being that I was in sales, I often took little “gifts” or “goodies” to my referral sources. Where I got my hair done-High Five Salon, they have always had a bowl of caramels on their counter when checking in or out. The first time I had one, it was the best caramel I had ever tasted in my life!!! I connected with the woman that was making them and began using the caramels as treats to hand out to my referral sources. Through this time I became friends with this woman and often we would grab lunch and talk about the caramels and how many different places they could go. She was making them out of her home and it was more of a hobby for her than career. She got to a place that she was ready to embark on a new journey creating life journals. With that being said; she knew how much I loved the product, the business and saw how much more could be done with it. We were at lunch one afternoon, she let me know that she was thinking about selling her company and that she had a few offers but she wanted to offer it to me first. She knew how much I loved it and everything about it. I jumped at the chance. The stars lined up! I bought the company in August 2016, ironically I had the best month I had ever had in my 9-5 job and was able to use the bonus money to buy Sunshine Caramel Company.
I worked with the previous owner for about 3 months, learning the recipe, techniques and process and I loved it!! I have always loved to cook and so learning to make caramels was awesome. Along with learning to make them but to have a market that people actually wanted to buy them, it was great. I remember doing my first market, it was such a great feeling to see how people reacted to tasting the caramels for the first time. Smiles were everywhere. Several people loved how it reminded them of their grandma’s, aunt’s or mom’s caramel. At this point we were only selling the Sea Salt Caramels, to this day they are the signature flavor and crowd favorite. But we have expanded to 10 current caramel flavors and other caramel candy products. Every part of this business has been a learning experience for me. One of the first things I did after taking over the company was to trademark the name. Trademarking was an interesting process. I ended up having to work with a company in New Jersey that sold Sunshine Coffee beans. We had to go back and fourth making sure there were no conflicting products etc. Once we got that finished up we moved on to developing a website. I loved the logo and natural look of the company so for the time being we went with that look. I continued to work both my “career” job as well as the caramel company as my side hustle.
I started doing local markets and meeting a lot of different people and potential clients down the road. Holiday markets have always been our best and typically we were selling out. It was so much fun!! We were now at the point where we had local retailers both in Ohio and Kentucky, website sales were starting and markets. I was beginning to outgrow my home kitchen. I met another vendor at one of the markets to introduced me to Findlay Kitchen. It is an incubator kitchen in downtown Cincinnati, in the Findlay Market district. I applied to the kitchen and got all of the proper credentials needed and I became a member of Findlay Kitchen. Moving from my house to a commercial space was a great transition. It gave me the capability to increase production and the product to be coming from a commercial kitchen. Not only was Findlay Kitchen great for the production side but also for the connections and opportunities it presented for me. It was 2019 and Findlay Kitchen was starting a pilot program call Findlay Launch. There were three retail spaces available for fair market value rent. You had to apply and be accepted. Part of being accepted to Findlay Launch you had to work with the Findlay Market organization to develop business plans, strategic goals and an exit plan. So I applied and was thrilled to be accepted. There were three companies total that had been accepted. Before moving in to the store front space we had to go through 9 weeks of training in all different areas of business. We were moving through our course work as the pandemic was brewing. At this point we had no idea the affects it would have, it was just the beginning. But we were told to continue of with our classes and that the program was still moving forward. We were set to open out storefronts May 1st, 2020. Late April we received an email out of the blue that the program had been stopped and that we were no longer going to be moving for ward with this program. At that point they were unaware of ever starting the program again. I am happy to say that they did restart the program and some other great businesses have gotten the chance to launch their companies.
One of the courses we looked at during the program was branding. I was ready for a change and an updated look. I worked with a local Cincinnati company Edlemade and they were simply amazing. They created a fresh new look and in Sept 2020 amidst the earlier side of the pandemic our new logo was born. It was the silver lining that came out of the launch program. Although the launch program didn’t work out for me and Sunshine Caramel, a fresh new look was born. It was a happy image in a hard time. I think all of us as humans had our own struggles with the pandemic and this was my happy spot.
Sales for sure shifted through the pandemic but we made it and survived. We had a great new look and we were still getting orders. It has been very interesting the avenues for sales we have found. Not only having the website with online sales, local retailors, we are doing a lot of corporate gifting and hotel amenities.
Fast forward to now and things have continued to grow. Three months ago I took the leap of faith and resigned from my 9-5 job and am embarking on Sunshine Caramel Company full time. Our holiday season was great and we honestly have the world’s best customers!!
What sets our caramels apart is their freshness and the fact that we do not use any additives of preservatives. This is also a challenge we face with retail opportunities. The shelf life at room temperature for our delicious caramels is 12-14 days or you can keep them refrigerated for up to three months and they will be just as delicious. Our caramels are so soft they melt in your mouth. I have had many people tell me they can not eat many caramels because they stick to their teeth or are two hard. Well they were happy to say they could eat Sunshine Caramel caramels.
We have grown our product line from the Sea Salt caramels(signature flavor) to elevan flavors; Sea Salt, Sunshine Orange, Hot Buttered Rum, Espresso, Bourbon, Bananas Foster, Georgia Pecan, Chocolate Drizzle, Harvest Spice, Old Fashioned Vanilla and Coconut. Our caramels are sold by 1/4lb, 1/2lb, 3/4lb and 1lb or custom orders and sizes can be arranged. Being that we do a lot of party favors, bridal showers, wedding and other events we do customize sizes and looks. We work with our clients for the perfect look or message. They feedback and follow up our clients get from utilizing our caramels is just remarkable!! Some of our corporate clients have now been using us for 6 years for their holiday gifting.
Other items in out lineup: Caramel Dip in sea salt, vanilla and bourbon flavors
Chocolate covered caramel hearts-box of 4
Caramel Apples-plain and with nuts
Turtles-2pack our signature caramel, pecans and chocolate
Caramel puff corn
Caramel and chocolate covered pretzels
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
One of the first markets I did was a fall Applefest. It brings in thousands of people. I was so excited to do this show and I was coming prepared. This was in 2016 and I had tons of product. I had my mom and son there to help me. Well the crowds came but they were not buying the caramels. I always had out free samples when doing a show. Normally it gets them to buy. Well they sampled, and sampled and sampled but weren’t buying. I started hearing comments that “I can buy a bag of Brach’s for $1.99”. In 2016 my caramels were selling for $6.00 per 1/4# bag.
I sold a little bit but barley enough to cover the cost of the vendor fee and ingredients to make the caramels. I was devastated. This was the second show I had ever done and was so worried this was going to be a forecasting of what was to come. I started questioning if people would buy my product, how will I make a living with caramel? I continued to move forward look for other outlets to sell the caramels. I did some small vendor and farmer markets and started to get a really good reception. I started getting orders from customers that had either bought a bag or tried a caramel. It was a good reminder to never give up, live and learn and move on
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I had a “9-5” job when I bought Sunshine Caramel Company. I was a sales rep and worked on commission. The month I was given the opportunity to buy the business was the month I earned the highest commission I had ever earned in, my at that time 11 years of doing sales. It was that commission check that set me on the path of Sunshine Caramel and I have never had one day that I looked back and wish I had done something different.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sunshinecaramelco.com
- Instagram: sunshinecaramelco
- Facebook: SunshineCaramelCompany
- Linkedin: Cara Carter
Image Credits
Lauren Corso-Edelmade