Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PROVO — The Sweet Station, Utah’s newest food truck, is selling something a little out-of-the-ordinary: choice.
The trailer, open since May, sells custom candy bars made on location, allowing customers to design their own candy bar and fill it with their favorite treats.
“You can get chocolate anywhere. We sell choice,” said owner and founder Jennifer Clark.
The Sweet Station was born from Clark’s childhood dream. Her mother loved dark chocolate and nuts and always wished she could find a dark chocolate Almond Joy.
“Then, when my husband and I got married, his favorite candy bar was the Hershey’s Bar None and they quit making it 20 years ago. So that was in my head too. How could I get my husband a Hershey’s Bar None?” Clark said.
Clark ruminated on the idea for many years and in the fall of 2014 her idea began to take form.
She found the Almond Joy-type coconut her mother used to love and went from there. Stocked with chocolate and caramel from Burt’s Candy Company, Clark compiled an array of fillings for customers to include in their candy bar. With everything from strawberries and shortbread cookies to nuts and marshmallows, customers have a unique no shortage of options.
“Since this is a really new concept, people are not used to making their candy bars on demand, I usually have to explain what we do,” Clark said.
Customers first choose whether they want dark or milk chocolate and Clark will dip a candy bar-shaped mold in the chocolate. She’ll then stuff the mold with three fillings of the customer’s choice, cover the bottom in chocolate and freeze it in liquid nitrogen.
“It only takes eight seconds. It’s really, really cold in there,” Clark said.
The longest part of the candy bar creation is the one-minute wait for the bar to warm back up.
Clark pulls it out of the mold and the customer gets to taste whatever concoction they’ve made.
Clark and her husband began selling the candy bars at the Provo farmer’s market. They did well enough they decided to take their custom chocolates on the road in a trailer her husband took a little more than a year to build.
“We are just trying to bring people the choice in their candy because sometimes you can’t get what you want. And that’s the problem I wanted to solve,” Clark said.
The Sweet Station originated in Provo and is usually at the Provo and Springville food truck roundups. The station also offers catering to businesses. The best way to find out where they’ll be is to check their Facebook page at The Sweet Station. They are also on Instagram at customcandybars and Twitter at @SweetProvo. Each candy bar is $3.50.
The Clarks hope they can continue letting customers exercise their right to choose.
