Owner Robin Strickland opened Big Little Fudge in Montgomery in 2011.[/caption]Big Little Fudge owner Robin Strickland envisions a day when the name of her company is as synonymous with fudge as the name Hershey's is with chocolate bars. Only four years after opening the candy shop with co-owner Kevin Graham in 2011, Strickland said her company is closer to that goal than ever before.
After selling the company's products online and in select retailers for several years, Big Little Fudge partnered with a broker to help it break into the national market. Later this year the shop's fudge will be found at select Target and 7-Eleven stores nationwide, Strickland said.
Strickland and Graham previously founded and owned Veriforce, a regulatory compliance service serving the oil and gas industry. They sold the company in 2009 and set their sights on opening the candy business.
The pair then purchased the Montgomery-based Stone Mountain Gourmet Fudge, which was rebranded to Big Little Fudge. In addition to the storefront, they began selling fudge online and in locally owned gift shops.
"Growing up, if [my family] traveled and saw a sign advertising fudge, we were exiting on two wheels to get to it," Strickland said. "Jumping to the food industry was a huge leap. For the first couple of years we were just trying to educate ourselves on how the industry works and how to sell a product."
One of the things Strickland said she learned was that the company had to find ways to set its fudge apart from similar confections found in old-fashioned candy stores and gift shops to compete in the candy business.
"You normally see fudge in a slab or in a little plastic tub," Strickland said. "We decided to take small portions and individually wrap them to keep it fresh for [as long as] six months."
The fudge can be purchased individually or in gift tins at the Montgomery store; via the store website; or seasonally on the QVC television channel and at retailers such as Dillard's, Books-A-Million, Central Market and at the Neiman Marcus online store.
"This year is going to be our biggest yet," Strickland said. "Early this year we set up a broker network to get us into more national chains. We've really developed a great reputation, and there is no other fudge product on the market like ours."
Fudge flavors
Big Little Fudge offers 13 original flavors of fudge.
- Choc A Lot: the company's original chocolate fudge made with real butter
- Colossal Cookie Crunch: cookies and cream-flavored fudge filled with chocolate cookie pieces
- The Great Divide: half chocolate and half peanut butter-flavored fudge
- Coconutalot: chocolate fudge filled with toasted coconut and almonds
- Chubby Chunk A Lot: white and dark chocolate fudge filled with walnuts
- Big Softy: chocolate fudge filled with marshmallows and walnuts
- Big League: chocolate fudge filled with caramel and peanuts
- Chubby Butter Nut: sweet cream-flavored fudge filled with almond toffee
- 'Nut'orious: walnut filled chocolate fudge
- Heavyweight Champion: chocolate fudge filled with dried cranberries and walnuts
- Mega Maple Nut: maple-flavored fudge filled with walnuts
- Hunka Chunka: chocolate fudge filled with dried cherries and pecans
- Pecan Posse: pecan filled chocolate fudge
18417 Hwy. 105 W., Ste. 5, Montgomery, 888-543-8343, , Hours: Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
