We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Julia Brandt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Julia below.
Julia, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
Being so far away from my family in Sweden I have since marrying an american and moving to New York always dreamed of starting my own business and being my own boss so I can travel to see them as often as possible and to be there for all special occasions. I have also dreamed about creating a business that would let me sort of have one foot in Sweden my home country and one foot here in The Us where I am creating my life living with my husband.
In February 2024 I had my first baby, my Son Theodor. When he was three months old it was time for his first visit home to Sweden to see where his mommy grew up and to meet all of our friends and family. As every time I go to Sweden my first stop is the candy store, because there simply is not any candy as good as Swedish Candy anywhere else in the world! In the store I was told that the supply and demand has been affected in Sweden as Americans have started to really like the candy and is ordering a lot. This got me thinking.. I started researching and found some manufacturers etc. in Sweden that would sell me candy and ship it to The States, I especially found a contact that was from my home town that I connected with. After doing a lot of research, looking at numbers, calling around every day during our trip here I sat down and talked to my husband about starting a Swedish Candy business in New York. But would this be taking a huge risk? I have a 3 month old baby, could I really start a business now? We decided we really wanted to take the risk and the next day we registered our business and placed a huge candy order to be shipped to JFK in New York. Thinking back on this day I remember the excitement but also the nerves, this really was taking a risk ordering hundreds of pounds of candy and registering a business when I had a newborn at home that needed my full attention. But we went for it and I am so thankful for that today!
Julia, 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?
I am the founder of Saturday Candy Co. A candy company based in New York who sells candy imported from Sweden, my home country. There is something in Sweden called “Lördags Godis” which means “Saturday Candy”, this is a tradition of children eating candy on Saturdays only. The tradition started in the 1950s where the government started a strong recommendation of children limiting their sugar and candy in take to Saturdays only. The tradition has over time become a large part of the Swedish culture. On Saturdays the children get to go to the candy stores where there is a large selection of pick & mix gummies in different flavors, they make their bags to enjoy Saturday night in front of a movie and then they have to wait until next Saturday to eat candy again.
I really like this tradition as I try to live my life as healthy as possible with lots of greens and excercise but you obviously need to get a treat once in awhile and that is where Saturday Candy Co. comes in!
We currently only have our online candy shop but we hope to open a physical store in the very near future. In our online candy shop you can buy our very carefully crafted 1lb mixes. We have sweet mixes, sour mixes, gelatin free mixes and some fun mixes like our “animal party” mix with animal shaped gummies or our “pink mix” with gummies in all pink shades.
You can also get the experience of going to a candy shop as we offer pick & mix online, here you can pick any flavors you like and we make the bag for you. We strive for processing all orders within 24hrs so all of our customers can get their yummy Saturday Candy as fast as possible, especially before Saturday!
Swedish Candy is very different compared to a lot of the candy we have here in the states. Most flavors are made with natural colorants such as turmeric, safflower or spirulina. Red40 for example that you can find in most american candy is banned in The EU and will therefore, not be found in any of our flalvors!
The majority of our flavors is also Gelatin Free and Gluten Free which a lot of our customers really appreciate!
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
I often think about the time we live in, with social media and the internet. How different it must have been a couple decades ago before we had all of this. If you, like me sell a product online that anyone across the country can buy, you basically have all potential customers at the top of your finger tips. I can go to TikTok or Instagram and search on different hashtags and find all the people that have liked things related to my product. This has helped me a lot as I have been able to find thousands of people online that has been searching for my specific product to the best price. This way I am able to connect with them and make them become a customer!
Before social media I can not even imagine how I would have been able to find all of my customers!
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
I sell my product on my own website using Shopify which is such a great tool for small businesses. It helped me create my website and a online ordering system super easy! I am able to create shipping labels to a discounted price, run promos. I can´t recommend it enough!
I also sell my product on TikTok Shop which was something very new to me, I never knew you could shop or sell on TikTok until I started my business. This has been a crazy learning journey and if you have a video go viral it can generate hundreds of orders in one day! I recommend trying to sell on TikTok Shop sa TikTok as a platform promotes your products as they make comission on your sales. They even run free shipping promos or discounted promos for you to sell more, without you having to make less money. TikTok will eat the cost that they discount your product with!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.saturdaycandyco.org
- Instagram: saturdaycandyco
