Candy

I went to a Candy Expo in South Jordan yesterday. It was like going to Willie Wonka's chocolate factory. The Expo was open only to candy professionals, of which I am one, since I started my sucker company, Edible Art. (It used to be called Savvy Suckers, but I couldn't ever remember how to spell Savvy, so I changed it. I haven't yet made a single dollar, but it is still a company!) The Expo had 200 vendors, all having to do with candy or the confectionery food industry in some way. There were tables spread with chocolate samples, all with different cocoa concentrations, and from different types of beans. There were piles of vanilla beans, and jars of different types of vanilla extracts to sample. There was a ginger table, a table to sample prickly pear juice concentrate. I found a company that sells silver and gold food coloring, and got some jelly beans with sparkle to take home. I found a company that is going to send me a sample of their pear-chamomile flavoring (wouldn't that make a great sucker?). There was a table with high-fiber chocolate. Another table had beautiful fruit-flavored marzipan. One guy tried to sell me an additive that makes hard candy taste carbonated. I brought home several samples of a two-sided hard candy (apple caramel). The apple side tasted cold, and the caramel side tasted warm. No kidding, it really did. It was a feast for the senses.

It was fun to experience the industry too. There weren't oompa-loompas running around, or Keebler elves (although the nice gentleman at the Keebler table did look somewhat elfish). The body types ranged from thin to soft around the middle, and I didn't notice an over abundance of tooth decay. I did see a lot of very happy people. As the Keebler gentleman put it, if you can't have fun selling candy, you can't have fun!