Food Processing-Food/Drink2 Comments

Sweet candy and Chocolate production is a lovely business, because you get to make people happy and make yourself happy. Who doesn’t like sweet candy and chocolates? Obviously no one. It does very well in cities and big towns because it is where people with expensive tastes reside. The business could be home-based or could be done from a restaurant kitchen. In both cases you need a shop to display the confections.

The business is almost art-like in nature, it requires your passion and a desire for cooking and baking. You must love it and express the love in your cooking to achieve any success, or else you will just be living a stressful life. Below are the fundamental steps to take when you want to start selling candy.

SEE ALSO: How To Start Food Processing Business In Nigeria

Attend Confectionery Classes

First thing is first, you have to enroll in a class to learn how to make chocolates and sweets. There are so many different types and you will be exposed to many of them during your course. The courses usually last for a few months but you can hire a private tutor or join more advanced courses even after you have started the business because the more you know the better, besides you will perfect your skills.

Rent a Shop and Pimp it

Find a location where it is busy, not congested like a market but busy. Make the shop as fancy as possible by using glass display windows instead of plain windows, colorful signs and other paraphernalia that will make the shop look extra fancy, or rather gourmet. According to Wikipedia gourmet means;

“Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, often quite rich courses. The term and its associated practices are usually used positively to describe people of refined taste and passion.”

So there you have it. The shop is the face of the business, you have to feverishly pamper it.

Test the Waters

Before venturing fully into the business you have to test what works and what doesn’t by giving it out free prospective buyers and family and friends. When you gather the feedback it will help you decide as to which flavour to make and which ones to ignore making at all for the business. When you have made your mind, you have found the flavours and types that would sell, then you can become fully operational.

Kitchen and Equipment

You need a restaurant kitchen (i.e. a kitchens designed for commercial use not the conventional home kitchen), its has to be spacious enough to accommodate additional room for assistants and all the equipment you will need. They mostly include;

  • Mixer
  • Stove
  • Tempering stone
  • Boilers
  • Bowls
  • Candy thermometer, etc.

Also note that the kitchen should be able to handle the capacity you are willing to produce. Once the sweets and chocolates are finished in the kitchen then, they are transported to the shop. Some people in the business divide the shop to have their kitchen in it but invisible concealed from customers perhaps through a door but that kind of shop is hard to find and most shop owners won’t let you convert part of their shop to a kitchen due to town planning/civil regulations.

Hire Assistants and Staff

It is impossible to do all the work by yourself, you wouldn’t even have the time. You need assistants to help you with the kitchen chores and making of the sweets, teach them and train them as you go along. Then there are the staff whose job is in the shop, the sales boy/girl, the person responsible for selling the items in the shop and a cashier.

Spend on Packaging

Just like the shop the packaging should be very fancy. Candy are packed in cardboard boxes or plastic bags, but they cannot be plain looking or the ordinary ones you find in provision stores. It should have your name brand on it.

To achieve a spectacular packaging you will need to hire a graphic designer to design a logo and package for you, a brochure if necessary where you can list the products you sell just like a menu. Then find a company that manufacture packages, a quick online search will reveal many. Choose the type you want and they will make them and deliver to you.

Flaunt Your Chocolate Production on Instagram

After you are all set and dandy, the best way to spread the word is through social media. People love food and they commit to it even on social media. Open a Facebook and Instagram ‘business page’, update it regularly with fine pictures of your finished creations, and don’t forget to tag your shop’s location whenever you do. Post as many pictures as possible and always interact with your followers, join in on the comment section, reply to messages and answer questions your followers may have.

SEE ALSO: How To Develop A Social Media Marketing Strategy

This is an effective marketing strategy that is proving more and more useful everyday to food businesses nowadays. Life is bitter-sweet as they say, but thanks to chocolate and sweet businesses they make us overwhelm the bitter.

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2 Comments

  • Korede October 13, 2019

    Thanks for this wonderful piece, i am interested in the art of making chocolates and would like to learn how, but cant seem to get any school where this art is taught in nigeria, so please can u help with names and addres wih telephone numbers of some good schools. Thanks

  • Korede October 13, 2019

    Thanks for this wonderful piece, i am interested in the art of making chocolates and would like to learn how, but cant seem to get any school where this art is taught in nigeria, so please can u help with names and addres wih telephone numbers of some good schools. my phone numbver is 09092917505. Thanks

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