OUR STORY

 

 

Darling Sweet, with level 4 BEE certification, came into existence when Frits van Ryneveld and Hentie van der Merwe met in September 2013 and decided to become partners, not only in life, but also in business; Hentie, with his passion for art and food, and Frits with his love for quality and design.

Frits, who had been living in Darling for some years was the first to come up with the idea. For him it was obvious that Darling ought to produce the most delectable old fashioned toffee seeing as its main ingredient, butter, is historically linked to the small town with its picturesque surroundings.

The idea didn’t take long to inspire Hentie – artist, lecturer and trained chef – to start journeying into the centuries old art of toffee making, tracking down long-forgotten toffee recipes and experimenting in their kitchen late into the night, while teaching art students about art and photography during the day.

From the start Frits and Hentie decided to produce a range of high-quality toffees that are unique to Darling and its surrounds, and true to this vision they try and use as many local ingredients as possible.

Currently their toffee range boasts seven unique flavours; their Tannie Evita’s Classic Toffee pays homage to Darling’s own Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout and part of the proceeds of the sales of this flavour goes to the www.thedarlingtrust.org

The Darling Sweet team adds no preservatives to their toffees and make all the reductions with which they flavour their toffees themselves. They are also proud of their 150g packaging, which consists of a carton made from recycled paper and toffee wrappers made from biodegradable material.

One of Darling Sweet’s aims is to create employment for the Darling community, not only employment, but empowerment and career development – the staff complement has grown to 13 members!

Our production kitchen is housed in Darling’s original General Dealer’s building, which is one of the local architectural landmarks. It is here where the whole process of toffee making is done behind glass so that the public can view the toffee production process as well as taste and purchase their entire product range.