Al Dente Toffee is Iowa only Toffee Shop. Located on the Historic Square of Adel, Iowa. We opened in 2013 in a 120 year old building. We make over 13 varieties of toffee and ship worldwide. We are making toffee new and exciting
Business Description:
Al Dente Toffee is unique, and we claim to be Iowa's only Toffee shop. We currently have direct retail sales, wholesale sales, in stores like Hy-Vee and Fareway, farmer's markets and Internet sales via website. The confectionery market is $8 billion in the US. Our competitors like Engstrom's; Nashville Toffee, and Elaine's are good companies who produce a familiar style of toffee. If your lucky you can choose between milk chocolate and dark chocolate on your toffee. We differentiate ourselves by producing small batch fresh toffee that is easy to bite which is why we call it Al Dente Toffee. We have taken the platform of English Toffee and developed varieties that have never been done like: Pumpkin Pie Pecan, Maple Bacon, Apple Pie Al Mode, Coconut Dark Chocolate, Orange Dark Chocolate, Bourbon Pecan, Triple Espresso, Double Dark Chocolate, Sweet Corn Toffee, Ginger Snap Toffee, Chipolte, Classic Almond, Pure Bacon Toffee and we have more on the way.
Our business plan is to grow the toffee business out of the current location into a dedicated production facility so we can handle larger retail customers and also capitalize of the power of the internet with direct website sales.
We have put every dollar earned back into the business to increase capacity and generate the catalogs and professional photography needed to get to the next level.
Reason for Entering:
Our growth strategy is based on self-funding the growth. So we invest only when we have available funds to invest. Our first year we took several unexpected hits from a historical grant that was short funded to the need for additional air conditioning to cool the building during production. Our second year we invested into capacity; taking our capacity from 240 lbs per day to 600 lbs per day. This year we are investing into a toffee catalog with professional photos. Our next major investment is for an e-commerce site to drive individual and corporate orders and to hire a social media experts to drive awareness and sales. This grant will allow us to grow faster, hire more people and position us for huge expansion.