Troy Dog
So get this, one night I’m scrolling through some Instagram reels and along comes a candy video where they were making a cherry mix of all different types of gummies. I figured, hey my four-year-old loves candy, so I should share this with him. The next night when bedtime came around my son Eli needed some extra incentive to get in bed and lay down, as always. So, I told him, if you get in bed I’ll show you this candy video that I found. Thus our nightly “Poppin Candy Videos Sessions” were born. Eli will not go to bed without unwinding with the new candy videos that were posted that day. We’ve been watching this account for more than six months now.
Last month, Poppin Candy posted that they were sponsoring a rider named Will Haddock who rides the 125cc class in the British Championship. I couldn’t believe that, like what are the odds that a viral candy company is into a niche sport like motocross and wants to help sponsor a rider? It’s a cool deal. Haddock has his graphics decked out in Poppin Candy colors and they bought him some colorful sets of FXR gear and custom painted his boots with their custom company lightning bolt on the back. Poppin Candy also bought him a race bike and is supplying all the candy and snacks that he will need to succeed. Sign me up for this sponsorship immediately.
Enter Jake and Brad Wilson, two brothers in their mid-twenties, from the United Kingdom. The brothers saw a gap in the market when it came to the ability to get candy and snacks from all over the world. So, in February of 2021 during the COVID crisis, the Wilson brothers went into business for themselves and started Poppin Candy. They started their online store and most importantly they set up social media accounts on TikTok and Instagram. This proved to be a detrimental step to their initial growth as their fourth video went viral on TikTok.
A couple of weeks later they put out an ‘Animal Mania Mix’ video and in five hours it did a million views on TikTok. Jake Wilson (whom I spoke to at length) said that the amount of traffic that their website got after that, along with the amount of orders that came with it, was overwhelming. At one point early on, Jake remembers that he would have to manually write down each mix and how many orders that he needed, then he’d go in the next day to produce those orders.
Today, Poppin Candy has come a long way and has grown tremendously. They’ve learned on the go, in a lot of situations, including social media as well. Poppin Candy now has 20 employees and is growing out of their current warehouse that stocks up to 5,000 different products from all over the globe including the USA, India, China, Japan, Australia, and the UK. Now when you make an order it’s a seamless process and they will ship to anywhere in the world. Poppin Candy fills thousands of orders every day.
“We’re only a couple of years old and we’re growing quite massively,” Jake said. “We’re constantly bringing new products and ideas.”
The team at Poppin Candy works with multiple wholesalers from all over the world to bring in all of the products. They have varieties of premium gummies, favorites from all across the globe, energy drinks, noodles, soda, pickles, and the list goes on and on. Poppin’s candy mixes are a favorite and if you have a certain flavor you’re looking for then they have it. Jake sent me the cherry mix as well as a blue raspberry mix and let me tell you, these are premium gummies. You will not find anything like this in the grocery store or even a basic candy shop.
“We’ve kind of become a mini super market at the moment where you can grab a bit of everything.” Wilson said.
That list also includes varieties of freeze dried candy and in the future they will be coating different candies in chocolate with their new chocolate machine from Italy. This was a Vurbmoto exclusive, Wilson told me, as he said I was one of the first people he had told about it.
Poppin even has created their own recipes like my son’s personal favorite Filled Gummy Ball Mix, which is a unique experience in itself. For example, one of them is a large gummy strawberry filled with strawberry flavoring that is quite delicious.
“We’ve set our own trends, obviously things catch on, like with our pickle kits,” Wilson said. “I know pickles are huge in America, well it’s never been a thing in the UK, so I think that’s why it took off.”
The Wilson brothers did send me a care package that seemed to have several million dollars worth of product in it. Look for a full YouTube video on that soon where we review everything. We started filming it and twenty minutes later we still hadn’t tried everything.
Jake Wilson has deep ties to motocross as he raced when he was younger and he still rides occasionally for fun. That is when he has time to get away from their booming business. Wilson actually races UTV’s in the British Motocross Championship and won that title last year in his first attempt. He’s got his full Poppin Candy setup on that as well.
Overall, Poppin Candy is going to continue to grow and I think they truly have something special in the making when it comes to the motocross community. Whether or not Poppin Candy decides to come over and support some riders from the USA, or even one day supports a factory team is up for discussion. Right now they have a unique deal with their athlete Will Haddock and this is the beginning of something truly sweet….
…get it?
If you’d like to support those who support the sport then check out poppin-candy.com to order as well as @poppincandyofficial on TikTok and Instagram for their latest viral trends.
Main image: Muddy Rut
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