Jet planes. Milk bottles. Wine gums. Pineapple lumps. Jaffas. Hokey Pokey chunks. Names to set your heart aflame and your dentist on edge.
Among the most emotive rituals of growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand is the childhood dairy trip for a mixed bag of lollies. Some consider the mix choice an art. Others, a science. How much can you get for your Mum’s loose change? What if you get some naff ones and nobody swaps?
From Lockdown Idea to Viral Lolly Business
Pukekohe mum Robynne Watson tapped her way into this cultural goldmine in 2019, in the teeth of the pandemic. With an empty nest and some time on her hands, she was searching for something to get her teeth into. She hit the sweet spot with an online sweet shop. Little did she know it was about to explode like a freeze-dried Skittle.
“I had no expectations,” she says. “I was a stay at home mum, but then they grew up. I’m not a golfer. I’m not a gardener. There’s only so many lunches you can do. I thought about selling baby products, but every second mother was doing that. Then I saw some lollies from an English company. I bought a thousand dollars’ worth of lollies and some prep gear and started with that. I just thought it might be a little bit of pocket money each week.”
A Family Business Built on Sweet Trends
Robynn’s son Merritt’s entrepreneurial spirit spotted the bigger opportunity. He describes the vortex that sucked him and his wife Daisy into what rapidly became a family business.
“Mum figured she’d spend a thousand dollars on lollies and if it didn’t work we’d all get lollies for Christmas,” he says. “A month later the country went into lockdown. People who’d never shopped online learned how. She just pottered away, three or four orders a week. Then one of her Facebook posts went viral and she did nearly three hundred orders in a night.”
Five years on the firm operates out of three buildings in Pukekohe, with a retail store on top of the growing online business.
Merritt and Robynne Watson
Co-Owners of Pik N Mix
Sweet Trends and Custom Creations
“It’s totally customisable,” explains Merritt. “We do promotional and corporate mixes. Mixed combos. People like a bit of everything. Sweet and sour mixes. Gummy mixes. People like all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Pink or blue mixes for baby showers. You name it.”
Robynne was also quick to jump on the growing appetite for freeze dried candies. Sparked by a playful adaptation of food storing tech, the craze for transformed puffed cola bottles, chocolate fish and gummy bears rolls on and on. From a single machine that ran all day every day and couldn’t catch up with demand, they now run six. The process removes all the water content, leaving an intense flavour and condensed sugar hit in its wake. But it can be tricky to manage, requiring much experimentation and an occasional mop and bucket in the freeze-drying room.
A Sweet Business with Local Roots
Merritt describes his new-found lolly knowledge as like mastering “a very, very, niche pub quiz subject.” It requires many hours swiping TikTok and other socials to anticipate trending treats, not to mention building deep relationships with suppliers. But this attention to detail is helping to make the company’s name.
“There are so many layers to this industry,” he explains. “Who makes what, where? What’s the new trend that’s coming in? What’s going out? Why do things get cancelled?”
The company even occasionally steps in to rescue the last of a classic lolly. Sometimes suppliers pull poorly performing products. Sometimes a process change alters a much-loved flavour or texture beyond recognition. Merritt has even been known to scour distributors nationwide and overseas to secure final stock. This ‘sweet intelligence’ has helped secure them as a sought-after site for sweet-toothed aficionados far and wide.
But the business is firmly local. “Local is the way to go,” says Merritt.
“We’re born and bred Pukekohe folk. I was raised here, Dad does business here, I raised my family here. So why wouldn’t you have your place of employment three minutes down the road? The retail here works. People say they’re headed for the airport and have popped in – they’ve come from Tauranga! Last school holiday someone came in on public transport from Ellerslie. It’s not that far.”
Clearly people these days will go a lot further than the local dairy for the right lolly mix. And as adults, the budget’s now a touch more than 50 cents.
