Rainbow Drops, Wonka Bars, Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Jelly Slugs and Blood Pops. She may not be Willy Wonka or Ambrosius Flume (owner of Honeydukes, a fictional candy store in the Harry Potter series) but Vrinda Rajgarhia certainly created magic with candy. Vrinda owns the well known chain of candy stores — Sweet World — which will be celebrating its fifth anniversary next week.

Metrolife caught up with Vrinda who spoke on setting up a unique concept store. “I had noticed that there were a lot of hard boiled sweets in the Indian market but no candy as such,” says Vrinda, who had finished her MBA from an American university at the time.

Speaking on her initial apprehensions, she says, “What I was worried about was that the country already has an extensive range of local sweets and established chocolates, so I wasn’t sure how this concept would be received.”

The store however did do well. It grew from a small outlet in Mumbai to 36 outlets across the country and when it did well in the cities as well as smaller towns, Vrinda realised it was just about the candy and not because people in the metros are well travelled and exposed to global trends, like she had thought initially.

So where does all this candy come from? “Since there are no local manufacturers, most of the candy in our store is from Europe and the US. I attend candy fairs around the world to keep track of latest trends so that  we can get the same candy that someone in the US has access to,”  says Vrinda.   With gobstoppers, gummies, marshmallows, liquorice, mints, lolly pops, chocolate covered nuts and much more, the store certainly seems to have a wide range.

The Bangalore store which stocks upto 160 varieties of candy at any point of time, is the biggest Sweet World outlet. Says Vrinda, “Most of my customers are kids, this is one of the reasons why I insist on quality. We maintain very high standards of quality and hygiene. Candy is about feeling good. I keep telling my staff that we are not here to sell candy, we are trying to make people happy. If a customer walks out of the store feeling that the candy made his day, then our work is done!”

The Bangalore store is located in Forum mall and will be having anniversary celebrations (October 15 onwards) which will include a lot of exciting games and activities through the month.