| Caring Candies were developed in 2002 by my husband, Neil and I (Denise), a Cape Town-based couple with two young children, and out of sheer desperation at the lack of healthy treats available in our country.
Sugar-free Diet
At the time Neil was working as an Accountant and I ran my own web design business. After consulting with a local Homeopath, I was put onto a strict diet, which excluded (among other things) sugar. All the sugarfree products on the market were full of synthetic ingredients like artificial sweeteners, artificial colourants and preservatives and caused me to have heart palpitations.
We threw ourselves whole-heartedly into researching alternatives for my sugar-cravings. Neil developed our first sugarfree sweets on our kitchen stove and once the taste was to our satisfaction we tried them on friends and family and of course our most demanding critics; our children. By also using a test group of non-diabetic or non sugar-intolerant individuals we knew that if they liked the taste, then we had a winner on our hands.
Healthy Candy? No Way! YES Way!!!
Our initial range, Caring Candies Sugarfree “Naturals” were herbally-flavoured candies with flavours such as raspberry (general tonic, detox), Lemon (nausea, digestion), Liquorice (low blood pressure, chest infections), ginger (nausea, constipation, digestion), and Lavender mints (high blood pressure, calming, soothing).
Best Product 2004 Award
Our first real stamp of approval came at the Annual Palatinit inhouse sugar-free meeting held in Milan Italy, where we were awarded the prize for “Best Product 2004”.
All this attention is just wonderful
Newspaper articles and interviews with us started popping up in various local newspapers and magazines, which was so exciting. Read some of them here.
Help! We need bigger premises
In May 2008 we moved into factory premises in Montague Gardens and within 4 months, had outgrown it. In December 2008 we moved into much larger factory premises in Montague Gardens, which is where we currently are.
Expanding the range
Following the success of our “Naturals” range, Caring Candies Sugarfree “Sourz” were added to the range offering an assortment of Sour Apple, Sour Cherry, Sour Tangerine & Sour Lemon flavours.
Next came our “Comforts”, which included flavours such as Condensed Milk, Toffee, Fudge & Lemon Cheesecake. Our range currently consists of 22 amazing flavours! Visit our Products page...
We’re up to our elbows in yummy chocolate
In 2009 we began developing the most unbelievable sucrose-free real milk diabetic-friendly chocolate. Our 10-year old son, who was visiting our factory during the school holidays, came up with the novel idea to crush our peppermint and toffee bonbons and sprinkle them into the chocolate - and thus our "FRESH MINT" and “TOFFEE CRUNCH” chocolates were born.
This year, we’ve added our long-awaited sugar-free DAIRY-FREE chocolate to our ever expanding range.
Hello World - We’re a Hit!
Based on the amount of hits and enquiries we get via our website per month, one can see without a shadow of a doubt that our products are in great demand worldwide and we now export our candies to America, Australia, UK, Belgium... – in fact, anywhere they are needed. Our customer base is steadily growing in the USA & Caring Candies are now in local natural grocers, Natural Grocer chains, gourmet shops, pharmacies, hospital gift shops, as well as larger venues such as Whole Food stores & some Dylan’s Candy Bars.
We're Vegan-Friendly
After finally sourcing a plant-based natural blue colour, we came up with the ingenious idea of simply mixing our natural red colouring (beetroot juice) with it and voila - a natural purple was born, making all our products completely Vegan friendly. More...
Best New Consumer Product 2010
We were selected as the Editor’s pick for “Best New Consumer Product 2010” by Progressive Grocer Magazine (USA).
Share the Love
We’re so proud of our USA Agents who donated Caring Candies to Haiti through “Doctors without Borders” (the candy was given out to both children and adults as a treat following medical treatment), as well as to Pettengill House through a program called "Share the Love." Pettengill House is a local non-profit community social service agency that provides basic needs, emergency assistance, education and services to children and families.
OMG we’re Feingold Association diet approved
The nonprofit Feingold Association helps parents of children with learning/behaviour problems implement the Feingold Diet and conducts in-depth research with food companies to identify which products are free of synthetic colourings, artificial flavourings, and certain preservatives. We are the only sugarfree confectionery listed with them!
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