Wonka with a cell phone: Noble candy maker found quick success by selling live online
NOBLE, Okla. (KFOR) – In a storeroom turned studio Dave Gadlin is just about to turn up the volume on his candy business ‘Study of Sweets’.
Every day, he parks himself behind his combo candy counter and mail room.
He logs on Tik Tok Live with his I Phone and computer to sell his candy concoctions to all kind of people online.
“I figure out what customers want. I figure our where those customers are,” he quips, “and I give it to them.”
A perfect spot for cowboy cooks is along the Chisholm Trail
More than a hundred people crowd into a brick and mortar candy shop might be too much.
In here, Gadlin can’t work fast enough to take orders and package them up while talking back in his New York style banter to the next customer in line.
Dave explains, “At the age of 21 I was running a $13 million a year restaurant in Times Square New York.”
But here’s what amazing about all this.
Prior to February, 2024, his candy business was just about flat busted.
“Literally, close to the edge,” he recalls clearly, “February 2nd was to be their last day.”
Dave has always been willing to hustle though, so he kept at it and found a hungry audience for his product.
“When February 2nd came we had already started on Tik Tok Shop and I committed to going live every day.”
Inside a non-descript, 5,000 square foot facility south of Noble, Gadlin is Wonka in the lab, experimenting with freeze dried candy recipes.
Skittles are the most popular.
He’s also working on freeze drying Airhead sour candy.
Huge sheets of candy, he insists, don’t last long when he’s selling it live.
Pointing to several large sheets fresh from the freeze dryers, he promises, “I could sell all this in 10 minutes online.”
Gadlin has another room dedicated to chocolate products, covering all kinds of things with both milk and dark, and, like the song says, miracles.
Taking aim with medieval artillery at the Guthrie Renaissance Festival
“The Candyman can,” says Dave completing the lyric.
In a matter of weeks Study of Sweets turned from sour to extra sweet.
The product that goes in the bag, he says, is better quality and cheaper than his competitors.
Suddenly, he’s expanding as fast as he can.
His continuing philosophy with candy and the business of candy, “Throw stuff up against the wall. See what sticks. Clean up whatever fell off, and that’s it. Do it again.”
Sweet success on a sugar rush is just what his business needed.
For more information on Study of Sweets go to their website studyofsweets.com.
To watch him live go to tiktok.com/@studyofsweets.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.
