Sockerbit is a Swedish candy store located in Los Angeles. It was first established in 2010 by Florence Baras and Stefan Ernberg in Manhattan, New York.
Four years later, they opened up a storefront on the West Coast right near The Grove in L.A.
Baras hails from Argentina, while Ernberg is from Sweden. The pair decided to open up Sockerbit to share the Scandinavian candy experience that Ernberg enjoyed as a kid.
“We met in Spain, where we were working for another Swedish candy company, and we fell in love, not just with each other, but also with the candy,” Ernberg explained. “We wanted to open up our own business and have other people enjoy that same candy experience that I enjoyed when I was little. Not just me, but every Swedish person, and every Scandinavian person generally, will have that same core memory where you would get your little allowance at the end of the week, normally on a Saturday. So we always call it Saturday candy, and you’d run down to the candy store and you’d buy your five or six pieces of candy, whatever you could get. That was like the joy of the whole week. So that tradition started, and the whole concept of the Swedish candy is rooted in that Saturday candy experience.”
The couple continues that Saturday tradition with their own children by having them come and pick their own candies.
“Basically, the experience is, you come in, you get a bag, you get a scoop and you just have a salad bar of candy,” Baras explained of the store’s concept.
The store is divided into different sections with areas dedicated by preference, which include sweet, salty and sour candies. Of course, there are chocolates along with other candies that many may have never tried before.
“We have marshmallows, we have a lot of salty licorice, that is a very acquired taste. But I think everybody is starting to add different layers of flavors, and then they learn to love things that they never knew they liked,” Baras said.
The candies are made without corn syrup, GMOs and trans fats, which adhere to strict EU regulations, as most of the candies are made in Europe. That quality is noted in the taste and textures.
“We only buy from the most trusted factories in Scandinavia and all over Europe,” she said.
Recently, Swedish candy gained popularity due to viral videos on TikTok.
“They wanted to try the candy on camera, and it was a whole thing,” Ernberg said of the content creators. “So it went really viral. I think the viral trend made people aware of Swedish candy.”
Sockerbit has over 140 types of bulk candy, and while people stopped by to try the viral trend, the store’s massive variety made them return customers.
Their top sellers are the sour cola pacifiers, which are vegan and offer a fizzy sour taste. Baras noted that their Swedish marshmallows differ from American ones because they have more texture that’s apparent at first bite. They do have the traditional gummy worms, but they’re made with “good ingredients.”
“The fun thing with the Swedish candy experience is that everyone has their favorites. Everyone’s bag is always different,” Ernberg gushed. “In Sweden, growing up, everybody would have their bag, and you would we would all run back, and then we would compare what everyone had, and then we would debate, say, ‘No, I like this one. No, no, this one’s way better.’ So that’s a fun experience. We want people to come pick their favorites, but we also want them to pick a few that are not their favorites to try to find a new favorite, because there are so many to choose from.”
With Halloween right around the corner, the owners like to create bags that consist of the best candies of the season, with a mix of customers’ favorites, “because you don’t want to have just bats and worms in your bags.”
They also have single-serve candy bags perfect for trick-or-treating or class parties!
Baras and Ernberg’s Swedish candy empire is expanding. In November, they’ll be launching an exclusive line of their products at Target.
“The Target team has been working with us very closely, and everybody who finds us, like you, is because somebody told them, or they came in and they love the candy, and that was a very happy surprise to hear that the Target team loved our candy,” Baras said.
This segment aired on California Cooking with Jessica Holmes, Episode 195.
