Candy Shop Crunch Time

Valentine’s Day.  What is there to say about it?  Love, romance, flowers and chocolates.  This is the day where everything and everyone sweet and in love goes out to profess their love to the world.  But what about the gifts?  Does anyone even care where they come from, or what other people had to go through in order to provide for them?

Over the weekend, I did a story about a small candy store in Fulton, MO.  I wanted to go behind the scenes, so to speak, and see what goes in to making Valentine’s Day the confectionary holiday that it is. 

Diane Branch is the owner of Sweet Temptations candy store.  I asked plenty of questions about candy and the most popular during Valentine’s Day and during the year, and her story about opening the shop.  While all of the answers were very interesting, one really surprised me.

Branch has dipped more than 1,000 strawberries in chocolate.  1,000 strawberries.  I can’t even imagine what that looks like.  They are all hand dipped and then hand decorated.  Diane had been getting to her store around 5 in the morning all week in order to have all of the strawberries ready.

This story was kind of frustrating for me.  My whole idea going into the story was to focus on how busy candy stores are the day before Valentine’s Day.  When I called to set up my interview, Branch said that she was going to be very busy and wouldn’t be able to do an interview until after the store closed.  She decided to keep the store open until 5:30, so I said I would be there around 4:15, so I had 45 minutes to get video of all the people in the store, and then stay after to do an interview with the owner.  I thought it seemed pretty logical.

My timing would have worked out perfectly, except I didn’t realize that word never got around town that Branch was staying open later.  Everyone thought that the store was closing, so they came by 3:30.  So now, instead of having a candy shop full of customers, I have an empty one that has one customer at the end of the day.

Now I’ll have to focus my story on making chocolate covered strawberries and the owner herself, instead of the hustle and bustle of February 13.  It’s frustrating, but I think it will still turn out well.  Well, at least, I hope it does!