Meet P.O.P Candy Co
What is the story behind your company name?
Our name was inspired by Pacific Ocean Park ("P-O-P"), an amusement park that stood on Lick Pier in Santa Monica (1958-1967). It was designed to compete with Disneyland, so it had wild rides & attractions, and over 1 million in attendance each year. People loved it. Later, Lick Pier became the "Dogtown" hangout for local skateboarders and surfers until its demolition in 1975. It had its own cool.
POP and Lick are now gone, but people remember the pleasure they brought with a smile. We like that … a lot.
How did you get started?
Famous Butter Crunch
Butter crunch was my go-to holiday gift for family and friends. After a couple nights of flipping butter in my home kitchen, they’d get theirs in a ribbon-laced cello bag. They loved it!
Then, a couple years later, my hair stylist was raving about it as she pointed to The Peninsula in Beverly Hills. “You should be selling it over there!,” she said. She was a successful entrepreneur who had carved out her own business. I remember thinking, why wouldn’t I take her advice to heart?
I also spent years in the nonprofit world where I was driven and motivated, but always operating within boundaries set by others. One day, I saw a quote from Rachael Ray – “If you’re going to work that hard, it should be for something with your name on it.” BOOM! AB. SO. LUTELY!
With that clarity, I started to see the opportunities that helped set p.o.p. into motion. A friend who sold her products at a local farmers market let me set up a small table at her booth. We started with four flavors – our “p.o.p classics” – and sold out of everything, even though it was a rainy day. They offered us a booth of our own before we even packed up! We said yes and officially launched our business.
My not-yet-husband – a pro in the restaurant world (could I have asked for a better business partner?!) – agreed to help me roll out the product. We found a commercial kitchen, scaled up the cooking, created more flavors, and developed our packaging and branding. Honestly, it all happened fast and it was fairly easy. It felt like it was meant to be.
What inspires you to create?
Good food and flavors we experience and then imagine rolled into our butter crunch base. It could be anything -- an herb, an interesting spice, a spicy flavor experience, or even a favorite cocktail!
Love that! Do you have a favorite part of the maker process?
Great question! Coming up with the flavors! After many bad science experiments and stovetop explosions (kidding!), we've come to know our butter crunch pretty well, so we really have fun coming up with unexpected flavor mashups that customers will love. Flavor origin stories vary ... some flavors happen on-the-fly (c-c-c-curry) and others take 9 rounds of R&D (whiskey cordial). No matter how much we think a new flavor is ready, it's always a little scary when we first share them with customers until we see their feedback. Then we can breathe again! (You can see the Limited Edition flavors we put out this year at: https://popcandyco.com/collections/limited-edition-flavors)
What is a typical day like in the studio for you?
Eek, never enough time in the day for it all! Generally speaking, it's all about the BIZ in the morning (calls and deskwork), CUSTOMERS in the afternoon (order fulfillment and shipping), and KITCHEN at night (making and packaging). There's never enough time for social! 12 hour days are pretty typical.
The life of an entrepreneur! What is a favorite item you have created?
That's hard to pick one ... we're really proud of the Limited Edition flavors we've created cuz there's so much of a flavor and texture range. We also consider the visual experience of our flavors so they still taste great but don't always look the same ... so maybe Toasted Coconut or Raspberry Blast because they look so pretty, or Buttered Everything Bagel or Pretzel Crunch cuz they're so fun looking.
Everything Bagel is one of our favorites! What do you love most about living in California?
Beach to the mountains, and cultural food mashups! Love the creativity that pours out of California. Having lived in (So) Pasadena, and loved it, a special thing is to drive around during holiday evenings to check out streets full of holiday lights. So so pretty!
Is there anything you missed most about in person events now that events are picking back up again?
Seeing and chatting it up with our customers! We recently did our first post-Covid in-person event (in NoCal) ... it had been SO LONG, but the great feeling all came back so fast and customers made it so easy for us ... now they just tuck our samples under their masks! Easy peasy!
Do you have anything special that you will be bringing to Jackalope?
Once we did the NoCal event, we knew we wanted to do a couple of L.A. events for our local customers, and Jackalope immediately came to mind. Love the easy-breezy park vibe in Fall Pasadena. We'll be bringing a fun assortment of our classics, salty-sweets, spicy, and oh-yeah-sweet flavors, and at least one limited edition flavor (whiskey cordial). Plus holiday gifts!
We can’t wait to see you in person this November 20th & 21st when Jackalope returns to Central Park, Pasadena.
Where to see more of P.O.P Candy Co:
Website | popcandyco.com
Instagram | @popcandyco