Sugar and sweet

Business is sweet for a group of Hoover High School students who created their very own candy company, Bluff Park Sugar.

HHS senior Ben Stocks and junior Reid Bearden said the idea started out of boredom. They were looking for something to do in April 2017, and when they found YouTube videos showing the steps to make candy, Stocks said, “That looks fun.”

“We made our first batch. It was pretty good,” Stocks said.

They were joined by fellow students Mattie Buford, Mary Ingalls Dwyer and Katelyn Ragland in making hard candies, taffy and lollipops into a business. 

“It was chaotic at times,” Bearden said, noting that they had a lot of people in the kitchen.

“The molten sugar can stick to things pretty easily, so that was a problem,” Stocks said. “We got it down after a while.”

Stocks and Bearden had jokingly considered opening a business, “but then we realized we could actually do it.”

Making a batch of candy takes about two hours, from mixing together sugar and flavors, boiling it, molding and pulling the mixture to putting it in a bag. Bearden said pulling the hard candy and shaping it is one of his favorite parts of the job. Their flavors include classics like cherry, watermelon, grape and green apple, as well as more unconventional flavors like pineapple and pomegranate.

They made candy canes over the holiday season, though Bearden said their first batch was “not usable at all,” and he wants to learn to make chocolates in the future.

Bluff Park Sugar provides candies for parties, anniversaries and other events, as well as selling individual bags to classmates. Buford and Ragland created the company’s logo and run the social media, and Buford said she enjoys shooting photos and interacting with customers on Instagram.

Bearden said it can be challenging to make financial decisions for the business as they try to make it grow. Balancing Bluff Park Sugar with their day-to-day schoolwork and other responsibilities also takes plenty of work.

“I would say I probably put candy-making ahead of school,” Stocks said.

Learn more at facebook.com/bluffparksugar or on Instagram@bluffparksugar.