Ever since he was a teenager, Joe Kelsey has been involved in the ice cream business.
Whether it was riding one of the infamous Dickie Dee bikes or eventually opening an award-winning ice cream truck, Kelsey has had his eyes — and nose — on creating unique products that arouse the senses.
“I started a couple of different ice cream companies,” he said.
Each new company served as kind of like a stepping stone to the next idea and opportunity, Kelsey said, adding he had been in the midst of creating a new ice cream concept which he’d planned to open in Barrie last year, but the timing was wrong.
“It’s always risky opening a business, but you’re doubling down opening a retail business during a pandemic. I knew I needed to lower the risk, so I started thinking about what to do," he said.
With scents like Funnel Cake, Rocket Pop and Saturday Morning Cartoons, his latest brainchild, Candle Crave, has taken that passion for the food industry and made it into a completely different kind of experience.
“I wanted to still be creative and work with dessert, but create a sensory experience. If it wasn’t going to be taste then I started to think ‘what could I do with smell?’ I came up with the idea of Candle Crave and a focus on food and drink," he said.
The candle industry, Kelsey noted, is extremely competitive, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, so he wanted to ensure his product was unique.
“A lot of people were affected by the pandemic and were looking for something they could do from home. Everybody started going in one direction so I figured I would do something in a completely different direction,” Kelsey said, adding he has always prided himself with creating trends and rather than following them.
“I have some really unique scents (and it) was important to me to make sure they were spot on — especially if you’re selling e-commerce. Touching and smelling is a big factor in making the purchase of a candle, but you couldn’t do that during the pandemic. If you had our Rocket Pop candle and you took off the lid, it’s exactly what is advertised.”
Kelsey spent more than six months researching the industry, testing and formulating his new products to ensure they came out just right.
“There are so many different fragrances out there. In the past I’d always prided myself on being focused and finding a niche,” he said. “We didn’t need 200 scents. We only needed 20 or 30 but we want to do them very, very well. When you think of a food or drink inspired candle, we want Candle Crave to come to mind.”
