Not just Easter eggs...

Phew, a really busy Easter in Helmlsey. The weather on Good Friday was beautiful and Saturday was good too. We were lucky on Easter Sunday and Monday that we didn't suffer like the south coast did. We don't stock Easter eggs, except for the mini ones as we can't complete with the supermarkets or chocolate shops, but we do make up lots of sweetie bags instead. This year people seem to be fed up of the excessive packaging of eggs and took a stand by purchasing their loved ones a bag of sweets instead.
So what were our best selling traditional sweets this weekend. Lots of Chocolate Peanuts, Sherbet Lemons, Jelly babies and of course the old favourites Midget Gems. Its funny how many customers prefer their Midget Gems wthout the black ones as they don't like liquorice and an wqual number will ask for lots of black ones.
The other sweets we are still getting asked for are Butterscotch tablets and Kop Kopps. Sadly both have been discontinued. Real shame.

Getting ready..

We have two exciting events we are preparing for in the shop, Easter weekend, which is always busy in Helmsley and the Tour de Yorkshire, which passes through on Sunday the 1st of May.
The colours for the tour are yellow and pale blue, so lots of Sherbet Lemons arriving today.
New into the shop are lots of flavours of sherbet - great colours and sour flavours for the brave souls who enjoy sour sweets.
We have sloe ordered another top up of the Dutch liquorice in all its guises as its certianly a favourite with the customers
Most of the local caravan parks have now opened so we are welcoming back our holiday regulars, its great to see them all again and find out what they have been doing over the winter. Its funny, but if a regular "goes missing" we worry about them and hope they are ok.

Busy Weekend

This weekend was incredibly busy in Helmsley, not sure why, the whole town was buzzing. Lovely weather and lots of people out and about - maybe on their way to see the Flying Scotsman on the North York Moors railway.
Sweet wise our best sellers were as always Lion Midget Gems and Liquorice sweets with Blue Raspberry Bon Bons a close third.
Now its nearly Easter it is time for us to be looking for new exciting things to add to the shops and we have a couple so keep watching this space.
On another note, we have started the preparation for our Tour de Yorkshire window, really looking forward to it passing through, though I certainly would not like to ride up Sutton Bank and Blakey Ridge in the same day -perhaps they will need some Jelly Babies to get them through the race!

Stock delivery day

We are often asked where we get all our stock from. No simple answer! When we set up the traditional sweet shops we set ourselves the task of sourcing sweets as close to the taste that we all remembered. There are many manufactures producing sweets, but many are cheap copies. So we tried hard to find the old fashioned companies and in most cases we did. It did mean a lot of sampling sweets - hence my exercise class at the local college each week.
Traditional sweets hold many nostalgic memories so we need people to be able to pop one in their mouth and instantly be transported back in time.
Thursday is our big stocking up day, so the shop is full of bags of sweets waiting to be logged in and put into jars. Its also the day when I eat too many sweets!
Today is no exception, there are bags of  Liquorice, toffees, fizzy and jelly sweets as well as the old favourites Sherbet Lemons, Chocolate limes and of course white mice.
Sweets can easily be tainted or lose their quality so we never keep a large stock in, preferring to have fresh in each week, which can be a juggling act, knowing what people will buy in the week to come.

Big Changes on the way

Lots of new exciting things happening at the shops over the next few weeks, we will be updating the blog on a regular basis so you can keep up to date.
The biggest change is the alteration of the layout at Harrogate so we can sell Ice Cream. The freezer is due in before Easter so we will have ice cream cones and also Sweetie Ice Cream Tubs...yummy, plus there will be a variety of topping to choose from such as Choc Lick, Sherbet, Kali or even dip your cone into the millions!

Happy Easter

By now you will have all been tucking into your Chocolate Easter eggs. There are many myths and stories about the Chocolate Easter egg depending on which book or website you read as well as your spiritual beliefs.
It has been great to see so many people out and about this week and the weather has started to pick up making us all feel that spring and more so summer is on the way.

All ready for Easter

While we don't sell Easter eggs, we certainly have been busy in all three shops preparing gift bags and hampers as that special Easter gift. Our new sweetie assistant in Helmsley, Katie has had a busy first few days and met many of our regular customers making their first visit of the year to Helmsley.
Harrogate has sold lots of chocolate letters and numbers as well as the lactose free Easter eggs. At Ripon we are wowing new customers who are arriving for the Easter break and seeing the shop for the first time.

Today there was an interesting tweet from Ampleforth Abbey (5 mins from the Helmsley Shop). It asked why today is known as "Spy Wednesday". I had no idea and had to go onto their link to find out why.