Photo supplied.
Pictured is Sarah Schultz with a recent cotton candy order for a hockey-themed birthday party.
Parents are often surprised when Sarah Schultz addresses their children by name when she’s serving up some of her custom cotton candy treats.
She knows many local youngsters through a variety of jobs including Compass Early Learning, Millbrook South Cavan Public School and the CMCC. These days she is building her entrepreneurial skills in a small business called Sugar Clouds.
She fell into her new line of work while helping her in-laws sell their maple syrup products at local markets. She made sweet treats for the booth, including candies and lollipops but one day she came across a recipe to make cotton candy out of maple syrup. An inexpensive Walmart purchase allowed her to create a new offering to help promote maple syrup. The maple cotton candy was extremely popular, but soon the machine became sticky with syrup and eventually broke down. Sarah weighed the financial implications of upgrading to a larger, more reliable machine and realized that to make it worthwhile, she would have to expand her offerings and her marketing options.
Sarah’s Sugar Clouds now offers twelve flavours of cotton candy, with blue raspberry, pink bubble gum and watermelon the most popular ones. The product is basically spun sugar, so it naturally has a long shelf life but left in the sun it deflates quickly. Airtight containers have replaced plastic bags for packaging, extending the shelf life even further.
Relying on Facebook Marketplace and word of mouth, Sarah’s Sugar Cloud products often find their way to birthday parties where her colourful treats bearing personalized labels are becoming popular party favours.
Sarah has also operated a booth at a few markets and community events including the Fall Festival in Millbrook and has sold her products in a few local fundraising events. If you are looking for a custom party favour that is not destined for the landfill, Sarah’s Sugar Clouds offers treats that disappear in minutes but leave smiles, coloured pink orange or blue, depending on the flavour, that speak of a lasting impression.
For more information about the business, visit Sarah’s Sugar Cloud on Facebook or Instagram, or email Sarahs.sugar.clouds@gmail.com. KG