We love a local independent. Even more so when they start stocking everything from chocolate pizzas to ginger beer-flavoured bonbons. Martin and Jess Barnett have opened just the establishment, much to the joy of belt stockists all over Nottingham. We found out what they had to say about all things tuffy...
Tell us how Treat Kitchen started... We were living in Australia and Martin was working as a confectionary buyer for Kmart during which time he made great connections with British suppliers. When we had a child, we started afresh by setting up our own business in our home city of Nottingham. It’s been Martin’s family’s business for years – there’s been a Barnett’s sweet factory in Nottingham since the 1890s. Our shop’s on Wheeler Gate and there are lots of offices nearby, but they hate us for being there. They’re tempted too often.
What’s your best selling sweet at the moment? We sell 36 different varieties of gourmet jelly beans and the best selling, believe it or not, is liquorice. It’s quite divisive – Marmitey. After its success, we made liquorice fudge and people just went for it. Our dessert range of traditional boiled sweets are really popular too: strawberry cheesecake, lemon meringue pie, rhubarb crumble and banoffee pie. They melt in the middle.
Do you come up with your own flavours? We went to the world’s biggest sweet festival in Cologne to find new ideas and see what’s trending in the sweet world. We found a bonbon supplier who does flavours like ginger beer, lemonade and rhubarb and custard. We’ve also commissioned flavours from Michael Barnett who owns Edwardian Confectionery Co in Huthwaite. He makes rock in the traditional method in big copper pans, then rolls it out and cuts it up by hand. He made us a ‘Nottingham rock’ in the colours of the Nottingham flag, apple and raspberry flavour.
Do you have anything new coming out? One of our new ranges is Radioactive Sours. They’re so sour they come with a warning. The sweets will be in scientific bottles like the beakers that have the narrow neck and the wider base. All the labelling is science-themed and the flavours are going to be on periodic tables, so raspberry will be Rb etc. The labels were designed by NTU graphic design students.
That must be great for their portfolios... Absolutely. They’re doing design work that is enhancing our business and future employees can see that they actually made a difference to our start-up. They also customised our Mother’s Day range, which was really cute, and did our window display. They’ve done a great job. We’ve also got an NTU marketing intern from Valencia, so we’re all learning Spanish.
Do you sell hampers of sweets? Yep, we tailor-make them. When Valentine’s Day comes around and a lad comes in saying, “Erm, well she likes chocolate…” we can talk them through it. We created a strawberry and champagne flavour fudge for a wedding recently. It was so popular that it’s in the shop now.
Where do you get the fudge? Patrick, my father-in-law, does all the fudge mixing in his onsite laboratory with a fudge kettle. He’s an ex-chemistry teacher – it’s a bit like Breaking Bad!
Can you make mushy pea flavour fudge then? Ha, now that would be odd. Maybe in time for Goose Fair…
thetreatkitchen.co.uk
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