KAYSVILLE — DeLaMare Candy specializes in making unique gifts for customers.
Inside the company’s home candy making plant, the DeLaMare family works alongside each other, piecing together taffy with logos, pictures or words in the center.
Rick and Julie DeLaMare said they will soon open a store in the Layton Hills Mall, where they will sell the unique pieces by the piece, ounce, pound or prepackaged. All of the candy is made with Rick’s special recipe, which he created through years of experience in candy making.
The DeLaMare children: Katie, Lizzie and Robert work with their parents and provide some of the labor of putting the design inside the candy. Recently, Katie and Lizzie donned hair nets, washed their hands and spelled “Happy Birthday” in blue letters inside white taffy.
Rick DeLaMare worked for the former Glade Candy Company, where he was a slab man clearing the candy off the table.
“Scott Glade taught me how to make my first letters,” Rick said.
“Back then they were pretty primitive letters,” said Julie.
After leaving Glade, Rick started his own business, with stores in Sugarhouse and West Valley in the 1990s. Rick’s partner wanted to sell the candy company, and due to a competition agreement Rick signed, he could not go into the taffy-making business for several years.
That agreement has since expired, so the couple are free to open a shop in the Layton Hills Mall.
“It is a candy boutique,” said Julie.
Pre-made gifts of the candy will be readily available in themes such as “Happy Birthday,” “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl,” “Over the Hill,” “Thank you,” and a smiley face.
Each will be in its own special container and have little balloons attached. There are mixes to celebrate holidays or for that special teacher, and with religious sayings such as “I Love the Bible” or “CTR.”
“We will have a root beer mug with root beer float taffy, root beer taffy and vanilla taffy in it,” explained Julie.
Another unique item is a red and white striped popcorn container with popcorn flavored taffy and butter flavored taffy inside. Other ideas are also mulling around in Julie’s head.
Also, special orders can be filled with text on the candy wrappers for weddings with the bride and groom’s names on them, a business logo or anything a customer may want.
There are more than 58 flavors with some very unusual taffy tastes, such as bacon and ginger ale.
Katie, a soon-to-be graduate of Davis High, used the candy-making experience in an instructional movie she did for school. And Lizzie said it is cool to make the candy.
Because the candy is made in Kaysville and the store is in Layton, the business has a business license in both cities.
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