With three jobs and six kids between them, it’s not like Cassie Benowitz, Lauren Sundick, and Maddy Persuitti had a ton of extra time on their hands. But that hasn’t stopped the three friends from launching a new business — with a special offering for Passover.
Candy 4 Supper, which launched last month around Valentine’s Day, started with the trio making popular candy boards for friends.
“It ended up being really fun and everyone is loving them and they would ask us to sell them to send to their friends,” Sundick said. “So we decided to start selling them.”
In time for Passover, they are rolling out the 10 Plagues Board, with a different candy representing each of the plagues, including frog gummies, skull gummies and bugs to represent locusts. Like with a box of chocolates, there’s a guide on the bottom of the board to tell you which candy represents which plague.
“It’s dark,” said Persuitti. “There’s always someone who has something to celebrate, but in order to have customers who continue to buy from us, we need to offer new things if they come to the website all the time. If it’s always rainbows, it’s not as it’s fun to come back to and see what’s there. So we knew from the beginning, we wanted to have kind of a seasonal and holiday and kind of celebratory approach to it.”
The early success did leave the owners’ mothers without candy boards.
“When we did the first batch, it was asking our moms how many they want to buy, and then we’re going back to them: ‘Sorry, we sold yours to people we don’t know,’” Persuitti said.
Sundick said the business idea came from seeing lots of similar companies on Instagram — but there are none in the Twin Cities. The business in general — and the 10 Plagues Board specifically — is very much a team effort: Persuitti credits Benowitz with the 10 Plagues Board idea, Benowitz said the name was Sundick’s idea and the business idea was Persuitti’s.
The boards, at least for this year, are not Kosher for Passover.
“There are enough people who keep Passover like I keep it,” Benowitz said. “I don’t eat bread, I’m not having pasta or cereal, but I’m not paying attention to where my candy came from. So there’s definitely a market for it. There are a number of vendors that make K for P candy, and we would definitely entertain, you know, creating those options for the future.”
So how do they find the time? Benowitz runs a medical-device marketing firm, Persuitti is a VP at dpHUE, and Sundick is a dermatological PA and one-half of the Skin Sisters with her sister, Brooke Moss.
“A lot of the things that we have historically done to fill our time is no longer not currently available, so it sort of created some opportunities there,” Benowitz said. “They say if you want something done, give it to a busy person. We were busy in our previous lives prior to COVID. And it’s doing it with two of my closest friends, which is really fun.”
Given what the last year has been like, Sundick said that they delight in making someone’s day.
“We are looking for something to celebrate,” she said. “How can we celebrate in ways that don’t unnecessarily involve all being together for the holidays? You can still like make someone’s day or to kind of send something for their birthday.”
Said Persuitti: “We’re excited by every single order. Everything is so exciting, and to go back to that real startup mentality and answer the customer’s DMs is really fun.”
Fabulous, creativity, wonderful, no fear,
7,000 boards in two days. Congratulations