Bucket List of Flavors from New Myrtle Beach Entrepreneur
By Becky Billingsley
Gary Easton and Michelle Leroux of Myrtle Beach were searching for a product people would buy repeatedly that they could launch a new business around, and they found it in cleverly packaged treats called Fudge Buckets.
The couple - he was a car salesman and she is works in health care - love fudge, and one time when they bought some, ate a little and went back to it a few days later, it had dried out. That was all the inspiration they needed to think of Fudge Buckets - four-ounce containers of fudge with resealable lids.
They went home and started cooking fudge, using a "secret Nantucket recipe" and came up with several flavors. Right now they have chocolate, chocolate walnut, maple walnut, pumpkin, pumpkin walnut, peanut butter, chocolate peanut butter, apple pie, candy cane, orange cream, sugar-free chocolate and sugar-free chocolate walnut. If they decide to try a new flavor, it takes them about 10 days to get it into production.
After they had the fudge recipe down, the real work began. Leroux researched all the licenses and permits they'd need to manufacture and sell food and secured all the necessary documentation and labels, such as ingredient labels that are on the bottom of each fudge container. Easton found a used commercial-grade fudge kettle, and then secured a place to use it. He is set up in the kitchen of I See Pastries in Carolina Forest, where he goes in at night to cook fudge after the pastry shop is closed.
Proper containers were critical, and they found plastic lidded cups that were perfect for holding four-ounce fudge portions. They put small plastic spoons on the lids, and then apply shrink-wrap over the cups and spoons to create tidy little packages.
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The spoons make it handy for consumers to immediately have a taste or two (or more), and then they can reseal the container, put it away, and come back to it later for more fresh spoonfuls. Unrefrigerated, the fudge stays fresh for six months to a year.
The Fudge Buckets are sold for $4 each at the company's Web site, fudgebuckets.com, and there are also gift packs that range in price from $20 to $35. Another fudge treat Easton and Leroux are producing are fudge pies, where 2.5 pounds of fudge are in a graham cracker crust.
In addition to selling fudge on the Web site, the couple is experiencing great success selling them at area holiday festivals. Right now Easton is at Shadrack's Christmas Wonderland that's set up through Jan. 6 at the Myrtle Beach Pelicans ball field at the corner of Robert M. Grissom Parkway and 21st Avenue North. They also plan to have booths at the Springmaid Winter Festival, the St. Nicholas Festival in Conway and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce Christmas Towne. Special holiday Fudge Buckets are packaged so the containers can be hung on Christmas trees.
Although they've been in business only since August, Easton is cooking 144 pounds at a time, three nights per week. He says if he was up to it, he could cook fudge every night and have no problem selling it all.
Already Easton and Leroux have met the goals of their initial one-year business plan. Now they're working on a five-year plan, which includes getting Fudge Buckets into retail stores regionally, and then nationally.
But their success is only due partly to the novelty of the Fudge Buckets containers, Easton says.
"I love it when people say, 'My grandma made the best fudge,' then they try ours and say, 'Grandma's in trouble'...Bill Gates isn't jealous of us yet, but I think he would admire how we've made a viable business just 90 days out."
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