An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
True leadership does not happen in corner offices. People laugh at Dec and me because as part of our routine, we will personally deliver candy to a couple of the HEB grocery stores that we supply to. We also spend a couple of hours a week in the warehouse packing orders. Leaders can’t lead without a team, and the best way to gain the trust of your team is to show them that you are right there with them.
As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Bessudo and Declan Simmons from Sugarox Candy Studio.
Jack are Dec are the creators of Tamalitoz by Sugarox, an artisanal ribbon candy pillow filled with chili lime and sea salt, giving old-school candy a Mexican makeover. It all started in a tiny candy store in Mexico City making small-batch candy. The husband & husband team wanted to come up with a unique blend of flavors that represented both of them. With the tangy flavors of Mexico and traditional sweetness from Britain, Tamalitoz was born.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?
Jack: My background is in advertising. Before taking the plunge and starting our candy business, I spent 15 years at advertising agencies. During those years, I worked my way through the agency, spent time in the account management side, transitioned to creative, and finally ended up as a Planner. Being an Account Planner is a big deal. In a role with overwhelming responsibility, you are accountable for the strategy of your client’s brand. Some of the most intelligent people I ever met were Planners. I would be in awe at how they could piece together data and deliver presentations that felt more like poetry than analytics. After many years in the role, it was clear that I was NOT that fantastic Planner. I felt like I was an ok one, but do we ever want to be just adequate? So in the words of my spirit animal, Carrie Bradshaw, “and just like that” I decided to leave advertising and start a candy business.
Declan: My background is in sales and management. I owned a fleet disposal company back in England. I never would have thought I would end up owning a candy business in the United States, but love the way my life has taken a sweet and unexpected turn.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?
The most exciting story is the story of Sugarox Candy Studio. It has brought us so much joy but also heartache, frustration, and failure. Being able to tell people how we started as a small candy shop in Mexico City, how that evolved into the development of a brand that we could export to the USA, then have that very same business in Mexico crumble due to Covid, while still venturing into the United States has been so successful of a story we often tell ourselves. For sure we will write a book about all this one day. It is also hard to separate our personal lives from the business, so most of our couple stories involve the business one way or another. People always say it’s hard to work with your significant other. But I can only imagine that being the case when the both of you are employed in the same office. In our case, there is nobody I would have preferred to do this with. Starting your own business is all-consuming; to have gone at it alone would have certainly ended our relationship, the company, or both.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We often consider Sugarox as having two beginnings, one was when we opened in Mexico, and the other was when we opened in the United States.
As mentioned, Sugarox in Mexico began as a candy store, it was unlike any other candy store in Mexico. Of course, we sold candy, but it was made in-house where people could come in and watch our candy artisans make a batch of candy from beginning to end. They could also have candy personalized with their names or logos. It was quite an experience to visit one of our shops. But in the beginning, we were still learning the ropes and we made many mistakes. The thing with candy is it is very temperamental; the slightest mistake will cause your batch of candy to crystalize, halting the process to a grinding stop. I was horrified and embarrassed when this happened, I wanted to give our customers a show, but when you ruin a batch of candy, it feels like you wasted their time. In time you make fewer mistakes and ruin less candy. Occasionally though, it would happen, but in time, it served as a gentle reminder of how delicate the process is. When it would happen, I would take the opportunity to show customers how the slightest error can make us destroy a 20 lb batch of candy. This made our customers realize how much attention to detail is involved in candy making and helped justify our premium price tag. In advertising, we would often approach a negative situation and see if we could turn that negative into a positive. Lesson learned.
When we started Sugarox in the USA, it was more like a distribution and sales operation. The candy was being produced by Sugarox Mexico, and Sugarox USA was selling it. But running a business and being in Mexico is impossible. So to make this happen we needed a sales team. As a small business, we could not afford to hire a sales team, so we started working with brokers. No offense to brokers, I am sure there are some wonderful ones out there, but the whole broker thing was not working for us. Thinking we could operate our business from Mexico was our first big mistake. We had to find a way to get to the USA. We knew we had to speak with a lawyer and find a way to get both Dec and myself to the States to help get things really moving.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
When everyone strives for automatization and technology, where efficiency and the bottom line are kings, we take a different approach. Tamalitoz, the brand we launched in the USA, consists of ribbon candy pillows made almost exactly as centuries ago in Europe, but we gave it a fabulous Mexican makeover. Each batch of Tamalitoz is hand-formed; the machine we use today to cut the Tamalitoz into their characteristic shape resembling a tiny tamale is the same machine we had in our first candy store in Mexico. We love that Tamalitoz looks and feels like something made 200 years ago in England. For us, candy making is an art, and although we now work with a co-packer, we made sure that our production is still hand-crafted. We embrace the imperfection of each candy, they are never uniform in shape or color, and we love that about Tamalitoz.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We are working on something exciting! We are developing an organic low-sugar version of Tamalitoz but with a twist. We won’t go into that much detail as it’s still a work in progress, but we are developing a line extension of Tamalitoz using organic tapioca fiber. We are still perfecting the flavor and consistency, but bringing Tamalitoz to a group of people concerned with their sugar consumption is very exciting.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
I am not sure I feel confident enough to give other CEOs advice; I still feel like I am at the taking advice stage lol. But I feel you always get the most from your team when they feel empowered, when they feel safe. They have to know that you are there to help them because you acknowledge that you need them much more than they need you.
How do you define “Leadership”?
True leadership does not happen in corner offices. People laugh at Dec and me because as part of our routine, we will personally deliver candy to a couple of the HEB grocery stores that we supply to. We also spend a couple of hours a week in the warehouse packing orders. Leaders can’t lead without a team, and the best way to gain the trust of your team is to show them that you are right there with them.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
So picture this, Dec and I are getting ready for day two of the Sweets and Snacks show. That is the big candy expo that takes place in Chicago. So we have our booth, getting ready to start the second day of the show. You have to be on top of your game, pitching your product to whoever passes by because that’s where all the big retailers go to scout new products. It’s a very fun show, but high stakes and high stress. So as we are getting ready to start day two, we get a call from our customs broker (see at the time we were still producing Tamalitoz ourselves down in Mexico City). So we got the call from the broker, and she said, “Guys remember a couple of weeks ago the FDA came in and took some samples of your latest shipment, well the results of the samples came in, and they are putting your latest shipment on hold because they found a coloring that is not listed on the ingredients panel.” This was a huge problem, as 100% of this product had already been spoken for, and we were going to have to let our customers know that there is an issue with their candy. Then we started thinking about what could have possibly gone wrong that they found a color that was not listed. It’s important to mention that when we developed Tamalitoz, it was important to me that we only use natural colors and flavors. The FDA had found an artificial color yellow in our candy. Initially, I thought that our color manufacturer sold us the wrong color and was getting ready to call our lawyer. To say that we started that day on the wrong foot was an understatement. Later on in the evening, I get an email from a very angry customer saying that her child had almost choked on the silica pouch that was in the bag and she herself was considering taking legal action against us. The next morning at the show, trying to keep a smile on when all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and cry, a lady came up to the booth and asked me about Tamalitoz. She was interested in knowing about our process and was shocked that we were manufacturing the candy ourselves. It turned out she is a co-packer and told us that when we were ready, she could help us with production and let us focus on building the business. It was like she was sent from the candy gods to come and save the day. Long story short, we get back to Mexico to find out what happened with our coloring debacle. It turned out our production manager had run out of yellow color, and when our supplier told him they had none in stock until the next week, he went to one of our candy stores and asked them for yellow color. In his mind, he was solving a problem, and he never expected that the FDA or anyone would find out. After finding out what happened, we called the lady who introduced herself at the show, and we set everything in motion to transition production over to her. It is important to mention that at the time we could not afford to work with a co-packer. They have minimum production runs and had we agreed to do a minimum run, that would have drained our bank account. She heard our story, and she told us that she believes in us and our candy. She offered to produce the first run and sell it to us as we needed it. What she did at that moment would be a game-changer for us, she truly was sent to us by the candy gods and had it not been for her, we would not be here today.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I tell people all the time that we don’t sell candy; we sell joy, excitement, and flavor. So just by being out there, we bring good to the world in one way or another. But one day, we got an email from a customer writing to thank us for making Tamalitoz. It wasn’t the first time we got an email from a fan, but this time it was different. She went on to say that she is battling cancer, and the chemotherapy makes it very hard for her to keep anything down, but she found Tamalitoz, and it’s the one thing that settles her stomach. We kept in touch and sent her a ton of Tamalitoz to help get her through her treatment. She told us how she had shared some of the candy with the nurses in oncology, and they all loved it. This happened right at the start of covid when we were all terrified and things shut down. I asked her to find out where we could send some cases to the nurses to thank them for being there on the front line. We sent enough candy to give to all the staff at the hospital Tamalitoz. It is the least we could do. The world was entering a terrifying moment and the people working in hospitals became our heroes. It would be an honor to bring some joy to them.
What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.
- Patience- Keeping an open heart and mind with each other.
- Vision- Both know where the goals are and where you are heading.
- Determination- Be determined to reach your goals together.
- Trust- Know that your partner will make the right decision and support them.
- Sense Of Humor- Make it fun!
See more in the video! 🙂
You are people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Embrace your sweet and spicy! I think there is beauty in duality, we condition ourselves to be one thing or another, but we struggle with being two things at once. Tamalitoz is sweet and spicy; wouldn’t it be great to champion our own personal sweet and spicy. We could end toxic versions of naughty and nice and embrace our naughty and nice. It is what makes us who we are. Find joy in finding out you are not one or the other, but both.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There are so many, but honestly, if I had to choose one, it would be the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I am not a religious person, but I do feel that by being kind and patient with other people, it makes your day flow better.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
So for the last month or so at our house, we have either Brandi Carlile or Sam Smith playing, and there is this one Brandi Carlile song where both her and Sam sing. It’s called Party of One and is musical heaven. So, so pretty and heartfelt. I will be greedy and say I want both of them over for breakfast. To spend time with creative people whose work you admire is always a joy. But to do it with people who you think would be fun to hang out with is a dream.
How can our readers follow your work online?
Follow us on Instagram @tamalitozusa and facebook.com/tamalitoz
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With Jack Bessudo and Declan Simmons of Sugarox Candy Studio was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.