Kolafabrikens Brown Candy Wholesale & Bulk

Kolafabrikens Swedish Chocolate and Dark Caramel Wholesale

Of the ten Kolafabrikens caramels, two are properly brown. Chocolate Caramel and Mint Chocolate Caramel are the cocoa side of the Swedish firm-caramel idea, and they pull a different shopper from the one who heads for lemon or strawberry (we’d guess somebody in a more grown-up mood). That gets them into places the fruit flavors can’t go, like the chocolate counter of a gourmet shop. Every Kolafabrikens flavor ships to US wholesale buyers at 2.0 to 2.2 lb per unit. You don’t have to hit a minimum order, and approved accounts get account pricing.

We’ve always thought brown candy looks more expensive than bright candy, and nobody has talked us out of it yet. Set a bin of the Chocolate Caramels next to a bin of the Mint Chocolate and the shelf seems to go up a price bracket on its own, which is handy when your store is a specialty food shop or the import aisle of a nicer grocery. Artisan candy shops are the other obvious home (the ones that care about depth more than neon). A bright novelty wall isn’t where we’d send them.

The Kolafabrikens Chocolate Caramel is about as simple as this gets, a firm Swedish caramel with cocoa worked through it so the chocolate and the buttery kola base taste like one thing. Nobody dips it. The cocoa is in the caramel itself, so the middle chews the same as the edge. Nothing on the outside can bloom in a warm truck either, and there’s no coating to get scuffed on the shelf. It’s less of a show-off than a chocolate-covered caramel, sure. We’d take that trade every time, since the plain one arrives looking the way it left.

Mint goes on top of all that in the Kolafabrikens Mint Chocolate Caramel. The first chew is warm cocoa and caramel, then the mint comes through and freshens everything up again, which is why we find it hard to stop at one of these (fair warning if you keep samples by the register). It also plugs into mint chocolate as a flavor, and mint chocolate has fans in pretty much every age group we can think of. Chocolate shops that sell a few confections on the side would take it. So would European delis with an after-coffee candy selection, or a boutique candy shop that leans toward grown-up tastes.

If we were laying out a Swedish caramel section from scratch, we’d put the Firm Caramels Mix at the front where people walk in, since it’s the low-risk scoop. Strawberry and raspberry would go in the middle, lemon next to them. We’d keep the Chocolate Caramel and Mint Chocolate Caramel at the back for whoever came in wanting a treat. A good wine shop or cheese counter does much the same thing, with the easy bottles up front and the deliberate ones further in. Shoppers end up walking the whole run instead of grabbing the first familiar thing and heading for the till.

Then there’s the plain visual side of it. In a row of bulk bins the deep brown of the Chocolate Caramels breaks up the pale gummies and pastel sours around it. At a pick-a-mix station that contrast is half of what makes people want to fill a bag in the first place, because they like a bag with lots of colors in it. Most of them came for the gummies (let’s be honest). But a dark caramel sitting there looking fancier than everything else tends to get a few pieces into the bag anyway. That’s a pricier piece riding along with the fruit.

We’d build a grown-up gift basket around the two dark ones. Say a bag of Chocolate Caramels and Mint Chocolate Caramels with some Belgian or Austrian chocolate tucked in around them. It all comes out brown and gold, and it looks warm. That suits executive gifts. Holiday gifting too, and premium gift-basket programs in general. When somebody is paying the higher price for a basket they want to open it and feel the contents earned it (we would).

A deli running a European import shelf next to its fine chocolate and biscuits and good jam will find the dark caramels slot right in, since the brown-and-gold look matches what’s already there. Being from Sweden adds a little Scandinavian design feel on top of a candy that’s already warm and comforting. The shopper who visits a specialty store to find something new, rather than to save a dollar, tends to like that sort of pairing.

Swedish families already know kola caramels. Back home it’s everyday candy, and the chocolate one gives them that Kolafabrikens taste with cocoa in it. Plenty of them have a flavor they picked as kids and still want. We’d carry the chocolate and mint chocolate next to the fruit ones so it isn’t only the light flavors on your shelf.

Boutique hotels with an amenity program would be our first call for these. After that we’d try upscale cafes with a candy display, and restaurants that send out a petit fours plate. We like a small dish of chocolate caramels on a hotel front desk. Guests can tell it isn’t the usual bowl, and the hotel gets to mention Sweden if it wants to.

We ship all the Kolafabrikens bulk caramels to US wholesale addresses (chocolate and mint chocolate too) in cases of about 5 to 10 kg. No minimum order applies, and approved wholesale accounts get account pricing. You can order all ten flavors at once, so a full Swedish caramel display (bright fruit at one end, the dark chocolate pieces at the other) comes from one supplier in one go. Browse the bulk candy catalog for the rest of our Swedish and European candy.

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