NORTHAMPTON — Those walking through the ground floor of Thornes Marketplace can now buy the high-end candy from Sweden at Lilla Swedish Candy store.
Owned by husband-and-wife team and Whately residents Nic Jansson and Holly Berrigan, Lilla Swedish Candy first opened as an online imported candy business last year. The idea came after Jansson, who was born in Sweden and moved to western Massachusetts with his family at age 10, heard from his sister that the Swedish candies he enjoyed as a child were flying off the shelves at her business on Cape Cod.
While the couple already had an online retail business selling imported wines, Jansson explained that candy is much easier to import than alcohol and was already a familiar product to them.
“I looked at Holly, and said, ‘Why can’t we do the same thing?’ The model is kind of similar to our wine business. We’re importing, we’re selling imported products on an online marketplace and there’s a little bit less complexity than selling or importing alcohol,” Jansson said.
The couple opened their online candy shop last September, using their website and TikTok to market the Swedish delights.
“We had a very successful holiday period, people were loving the candy. We were very popular on TikTok, and things were going great, so we were kind of thinking about our next expansion opportunity,” Jansson said.
Modeled after Jansson’s family cabin in Sweden, the first-floor candy shop is decorated with Swedish folk art, olive green walls and a mock dinner table where home goods are displayed for sale.
“We decided to do imports and things that are traditional to Nic’s family cottage. [The entrance] over there, that’s like the outside of the cottage in Sweden. The blue door is super traditional … we’ll have a candy cart there eventually too that people can rent for weddings,” Berrigan said. “We made the wallpaper similar to the wallpaper at our family cottage and the tables, all the settings … it’s a little more space than we need, so we’re just going to bring the vibe of a Scandinavian cottage here and have some gifts and home goods for sale.”
Selling everything from Swedish sodas and crispbread, to pre-packaged candy assortments, Jansson explained that the pick-and-mix bags remain most true to Sweden’s Saturday candy culture.
Lördagsgodis, or “Saturday sweets,” is a tradition that began in 1959 as a government-led initiative to limit children’s sugar consumption to Saturdays. Recalling fond memories of taking Saturday strolls to the candy store with his parents as a child, Jansson explained that he wanted to bring the more dynamic flavors of Swedish candy to the U.S.
“It evolved into this really deep tradition within Sweden, where every Saturday, we would go and pick out a mixed bag of candy and we’d get little sodas too, and then I would bring them back to either the cottage or our apartment in Stockholm and we would eat our candy and read a book or watch a movie,” he said.
Compared to American candy, which Jansson explained is often artificially sweetened and simple in flavor, Swedish candy typically has deeper flavor profiles, often with hints of more herbal or natural flavors.
Pointing out the wide variety of sweets in stock — most from Sweden but others imported from European countries — Berrigan described a box of candy sticks as being from the same maker that produced the original candy cane. She said that unlike American candy canes, their Scandinavian counterparts have a semi-chewy texture.
Being involved in both the gourmet candy and natural wine businesses, Berrigan joked that they are in the business of “slightly-better-for-you vices.”
“It’s natural wine and there are no additives, but it’s still wine,” she said. “Our Swedish candy is slightly better for you because it’s from the EU, but it’s still candy, so we’re very fun at parties.”
Lilla Swedish Candy is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
