New candy called Little Sweets hits stores just in time for Easter. (Provided by Little Secrets.)
Chris Mears, a guy with a sweet tooth, grew up with a passion for M&M’s. But after years spent working in Boulder-area natural product companies, he yearned for something like those childhood favorites – but with no artificial flavoring. So he created his own candy company, and his sweets – called Little Secrets — hit stores this weekend, just in time for Easter.
“We spent a lot of time thinking how to make the best-tasting, most awesome candy-coated chocolate,” said Mears, a former vice president of sales at , and one of the original employees at Bear Naked Granola.
The biggest challenge was avoiding artificial flavoring, but coming up with a candy-coated “that didn’t have dull colors,” he said. “We wanted nice, fun, bright colors.”
Finally, they hit on fruit and vegetable extracts: turmeric to make yellow, beet juice for red, spirulina for blue, red cabbage juice for purple, and pumpkin, carrot, and radish for orange.
The bite-sized bits come in four flavors: milk chocolate, dark chocolate raspberry, dark chocolate peanut butter and dark chocolate. The dark chocolate peanut butter and dark chocolate raspberry are fair-trade certified, and the new company is working to get the certification for all the products.
The company name came from his familiarity with the sweet-tooth habit.
“About 2 p.m. you think, I just need a little candy, so you reach into your desk drawer and get your Little Secret,” he said.
Thatap also why “Sharing Is Optional” is the tongue-in-cheek slogan on the packaging.
“Chocolate is complicated, and people’s relationship to it is interesting,” he said. “Like I want to tell people, but maybe I don’t want to share it.”
The 1.5 ounce snack size is about $2, and the 6 ounce family size package is about $5.99. To celebrate the launch on Easter weekend, Whole Foods is having a buy-one-get-one-free sale. Little Secrets will also be sold at Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Lucky’s Markets, Earth Fare stores, and on www.sharelittlesecrets.com.
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