__________________________________________________________________________________________________ Candy Kittens
CHALLENGER
BRAND CANDY
Plant-powered innovation, bold branding and rapid retail expansion fuels Candy Kittens’ disruption of the confectionery industry
When a mutual friend from university first introduced Ed Williams and Jamie Laing, the pair quickly realized they both had bold business ideas and a shared mission: to challenge the dated sweets industry and the big beasts that dominated the shelves. Their novel thoughts and ambitions collided, and in 2012 they launched the gourmet sweet brand, Candy Kittens, successfully disrupting traditional sugar confectionary giants and maintaining a‘ challenger brand mentality’ throughout, as described by entrepreneur and Co-founder Ed. Initially founded in Chelsea, Candy Kittens’ first physical sweet shop opened on the Kings Road, London, followed by a move into the capital’ s iconic Selfridges store.
Today, it delivers a vast range of‘ better sweets, made for adults’, such as the popular Sour Watermelon and Wild Strawberry catshaped sweets, available to buy online and stocked in numerous stores, including Tesco, Sainsbury’ s, Asda and Boots. Not only has it expanded tremendously, pivoting from D2C to grocer distribution, the environmentally conscious company is the first B-Corp certified sweets brand, and it also made a full transition to creating vegan sweets in 2018.“ With our‘ better is possible’ mindset
foodchainmagazine. com 165