“It’s a really great impulse item to just add on to the regular core business of beverage sales,” comments Jim Kim, co-founder of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kick Prints, about his company’s mint tins. “The coffee shops are around to sell coffee and hand crafted beverages, but our mints become a nice little add-on, a nice little convenience to offer customers.”
From licorice treats to chocolate-covered espresso beans to wine-infused chocolates, there’s certainly no shortage of creative companies developing delicious confections.
Niches and novelties
Confection companies recognize that the key ingredient in all of their recipes is innovation, and through this competition of originality, the retailers can’t help but win.
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Oral Fixation Mints began with “the mission of making everyday products beautiful,” explains Henry Rich, co-founder and president of the Hopewell N.J. company. “We use the highest-quality mint oils, and the tin is functional after use,” he continues.
“At the outset, we said that we would use all the money that we make selling the product and spend it on the product. We’re never going to be able to compete with the advertising budget of our competitors … so we figured we’d just have to make basically the best mint ever made and people would keep buying it,” Rich says.
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With, or without, sugar
Most confection companies expand their flavor line as their products gain popularity, but all of them do stick with what originally worked.
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Oral Fixation Mints come in six uniquely named flavors- 7 Deadly Cinnamon, Mojito Mint, Classical Peppermint, Night Light (Caffeinated Chai Mint), Sugar-Free Tibet (Sugerless Wintergreen) and Spare Mint (Spearmint). All of the Oral Fixation Mints are sugar free except for the Night Light, “which is made with brown sugar to bring out the full spice of the caffeinated Chai”, Rich explains.
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“It seems that consumers want to be able to pick up something and treat themselves to something small and not feel guilty about it, and just enjoy themselves,” Marich Confectionery Co.’s van Dam says.
On the verge
Oral Fixation Mints plan to introduce four flavors in the spring, all specifically targeted for the coffee industry-Mimosa, Green Tea, Jasmine, and a fruit-flavored mint.
The savvy customer
Alexander, of Koppers Chocolate, believes that consumer tastes are becoming more sophisticated, which is right in line with her company’s adult audience.
“We started out having sophisticated chocolates,” she says. “We’ve always specialized in dark chocolate and a very high cocoa content. We really specialized in using superb beans and equally good chocolate.. if you’re going to have a coffeeshop where you really want to show our coffee, to me it doesn’t make sense not to have superior beans.”
Kookaburra’s Faulds agrees that tastes are changing.
“The majority of people who want a specialty licorice are adults. But yet my daughter, who’s 10, and all of her friends love the licorice,” she says.
Black Forest Chocolate’ owner, Granville, notices a sway in consumer opinion.
“I’ve seen more interest in this side of the industry, kind of away from the hard candy, and more into chocolates that are associated with food values. Instead of just candy for the sake of candy,” he says.
Rich, with Oral Fixation Mints, says, “I think consumers are a lot more sophisticated than most stores give people credit for. You’ll always find that retailers are more conservative than consumers. And what’s been really good for our retailers is that when a place carries Oral Fix, it’s not just that the consumer buys Oral Fix, they consider this place the kind of place that stocks high-quality items and kind of edgy products. Carrying Oral Fix [near] your cash register is almost like installing a slightly classier or edgier interior.”
Kurdoon, of Sencha Naturals Green Tea Mints, thinks there’s a sort of burn out in the confectionary world in terms of the overly strong mints flavors.
“I think with the way the gourmet foods are increasing in terms of awareness,” he explains, “it’s kind of falling into the confectionery market where your mouth doesn’t feel overwhelmed.”
“I think they’re more sophisticated because they’ve become more knowledgeable,” Torn Ranch’s Shaffer points out. “What they’re looking for, what they’ve been reading, has given them the urge to go out and buy something that they enjoy. And that usually means a premium product.”
Marich Confectionery Co.’s van Dam adds, “The expectation with coffee has forever been raised to where the minimum’s now significantly higher than it was before. The consumer is looking for a much more interesting product because it’s not there for sustenance, it’s there for experience.” |
