Jacksonville Chocolatier and Candy Maker: Sweet Pete's

Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Caramel with chunks of salt

10. Do you have any really exotic candy?

We have a lot. We have a line of spices. One of them is a Dark Chocolate Pink Peppercorn. It’s a peppercorn, enrobed in dark chocolate and rolled in bitter cocoa powder. Things like that are an acquired taste but they also have a real following. We’ve done events with restaurants where they’ve incorporated some of our more interesting spices into their dishes.

11. Have there been any big candy surprises?

Yes! We have these giant lollipops that we make in-house by hand. They’re $25 but they’re about the size of a dinner plate. We originally did them more as a display item that you could buy if you really wanted one. We put them on our website and were shocked at how many we sold. We ship them all over the place now.

12. Are there any hidden gems that you really love but aren’t as front of mind for a lot of people?

My personal, current favorite - and it changes every couple of weeks - is the Coconut Haystack. It’s organic coconut, soaked in rum and toasted before being blended in milk or dark chocolate.

13. How big a part are the candy making classes for Sweet Pete’s?

They’re a huge part. It wasn’t intentional and was never in our original plan to have them. We came to Springfield because our partner at the time had a property and it fit us from a financial position. We liked Springfield but the location wasn’t in a high traffic area so we had to work for all our customers. Going into our first Christmas we were trying to be creative. I knew Pete could make candy canes so we came up with the idea of having a class to let people shape their own candy canes. From there it really took off. We built on what we had by adding different classes, birthday parties, and other events to where it’s now a really big part of our business.


Chocolate Dipped Cookies. Photo courtesy Sweet Pete’s.

14. Are the classes mostly for kids?

They’re for everyone! We make all our classes, for any age level, a fun experience that’s entertaining and engaging. We want to go beyond just showing you how to make something. We want to find products that really allow people to get hands on. Last summer we were looking for something cool to add and we came up with our version of the blow pop. Although there were other candies, a blow pop allowed people to knead their own gum and roll it into balls. We really want to keep an emphasis on the hands on part of making candy.


Sea Salt Caramels

15. Can you tell us about how you came up with the idea for your first reality TV show?

We were featured on a local show called “Like, Love, Want, Need.” Amy West is the host of that show. The producer was talking to us and said that we should do a reality show. We thought that was a great idea and agreed to it if they could figure out how to make it happen.

The producer worked to find sponsorships for the show. We did entry-level type production, so it’s not going to win an Academy Award, but it was really fun to do. We enjoyed ourselves and our customers seemed to like it. We got some good publicity along the way too. It had a pretty good following too.

16. Is it something you’d do again?

Yeah! As long as the show stayed focused on the candy and the shop we’d do it.


Chocolate Dipped Sea Salt Caramels.

17. How did you get selected to be on The Profit?

We had hit a roadblock with our partner where we just couldn’t see a way to work together or grow as partners. We couldn’t think of any way forward so I just went online and applied on The Profit website.

18. That was it? How did you get picked from among all the others who applied?

There were 10,000 applications for season 2 and they chose 8 companies. I think we hit the perfect timing. I applied at 8 in the morning and got a call back by 4 that afternoon. They were looking for their last, final episode and were focused on that on the day I applied. They wanted someone in Florida because, logistically, they were also filming in Tampa and Key West and they wanted another company in Florida, so that helped us. On top of all that, the host, Marcus Lemonis, has always wanted to be in the candy business. I included a lot of pictures of our shop, so that also helped.