A mobile cart rolling up to Houston birthdays, weddings and corporate events this fall is serving something the city hasn't quite seen before: imported Swedish pick-and-mix candy, scooped to order and sold by weight. Haus Candy Co. describes itself as Houston's first Swedish candy cart, built by husband-and-wife team Chelcie and Adam Aldred, who are Houston natives themselves.
A Vintage-Inspired Cart With Swedish Roots
Per Community Impact, Haus Candy is a mobile, vintage-inspired candy cart that imports its candy straight from Sweden. The Aldreds wanted to bring Swedish pick-and-mix candy culture to Houston, and according to Haus Candy Co.'s website, they built the city's first Swedish candy cart to do it. Chelcie Aldred has said she and her husband share a passion for design and a love for candy, a combination that shows up in the cart's presentation as much as its contents.
Customers scoop their own selections into a bag and pay by weight, a format the company's website ties to a long-standing custom: Swedish candy is traditionally mixed and matched by the bagful, bringing together gummies, sours and foams in flavors and textures not typically found on American shelves. In Sweden, that weekly ritual of picking your own mix, known as lördagsgodis, has been a fixture of Swedish life since the 1950s, according to a separate report from the Fort Worth Report on a comparable Swedish candy business opening in North Texas.
What's On The Menu
The rotating lineup includes foams, gummies, chewy candies and gel-filled pieces, spanning both sweet and sour options, Community Impact reports. Varieties named in the selection include banana toffee, dizzy skulls, happy chews, sour apple, sour cherries, sour peach and tutti frutti. The company also offers gluten-free and gelatin-free options, and its candy is free of most artificial dyes.
Haus Candy offers free samples of everything on the cart before customers commit to a bag, the outlet notes. Shoppers who'd rather skip the scooping altogether can also pick up Party Packs in 8-ounce and 16-ounce bags.
Booking The Cart Or Finding It On The Road
For events, the staffed Candy Cart comes with two attendants and serves as a centerpiece for parties, with the company's site listing twelve varieties on offer at those bookings. Haus Candy is based in Garden Oaks and travels within 35 miles for standard private-event pricing, charging a travel fee for events farther out, according to Community Impact's reporting.
Beyond private bookings, the cart also shows up at public markets and pop-ups around the Houston area, since it's mobile and can be found in different locations depending on the week. Haus Candy is set to appear at Sterling's Market's fall festival and at a trick-or-treat event in Rice Village this month, the outlet reports. Customers looking for the cart's self-serve Candy Stand or its next pop-up stop can check the company's website at www.hauscandyco.com.
A Regional Trend Toward Imported Sweets
Haus Candy isn't the only Texas business betting on the appeal of Swedish candy culture. In Fort Worth, Swedish Candy Culture, founded by Lukas and Crimson Nathanson after they began bringing suitcases of candy home from trips to Sweden, is building a larger brick-and-mortar shop that plans to offer more than 200 imported varieties in bins where customers scoop and pay by the kilo, per the Fort Worth Report. That shop also plans a private-events room for children's birthday parties and adult candy-and-wine pairings, and the Nathansons built their following through pop-up events and festivals across the Fort Worth-Dallas area before going permanent, the same report notes.
