Mind blowing

ISM Innovation Award winner Tolga Erden tells Susannah Millen about the background to the launch of innovative popping candy SoundyCandy.

Since childhood, I have had a special relationship with sweets,” says Erden, founder of the innovative new confection SoundyCandy.

Erden was born in Istanbul, Turkey and later moved to Eskisehir, which is close to Ankara. His grandfather was the owner of Erden Confectioneries, which was based there and was one of the biggest confectionery companies in the Middle East at the time. Established in 1878, the company finally closed its doors during the financial crisis of 2001.

After graduating from the German School in Istanbul, Erden studied food technology and biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich where he received a Masters degree in the subject. “My father is also a food scientist, so I grew up surrounded by sweets, learning the technology behind them from the start,” he explains.

Inspiration

Having grown up surrounded by sweets, Erden became bored by many of them. “But tasting popping candy for the first time was a mind blowing experience,” he says.

However, he also realised that the popping effect was short-lived, only lasting for a few seconds, and that the candy was far from easy to eat.

“The dosage was a problem,” he explains. “If you tried to eat it directly from the sachet, sometimes you ended up with the entire pack in your mouth.

“Besides, you also had the sticky remains inside the pack, which you had to remove with your fingers.
“If you only put a small amount on your hand, you would get sticky while licking it off. Sometimes the granules even ended up all over the carpet. And all for just a few seconds of enjoyment,” he adds.
Because of these properties, popping candy had always been considered something just for children, but this led Erden to consider the matter further.

“I started to put the bigger granules on one side and the small ones on the other. I would keep the bigger ones until the end just to extend the popping effect for as long as possible. The longer they stayed, the more I could enjoy the effect and the experience of this special candy. That was when I started to wonder why there was no whole shaped popping candy for the first time. I was 13 years old.”

Product development

It took Erden about 10 years to develop his idea. “As I was sure about the technical solution, I built a prototype to test the idea,” he says. “After experimenting with the prototype for the first time I already had SoundyCandy in my hands.”

Having developed the product, Erden started looking for investors to finance a production facility so that he could start manufacturing it, but no one believed that the process could be easily achieved on a large scale. “So I decided to go into production myself to prove mass production can be realised even with a small budget. The most difficult part was finding an affordable way to build an industrial version of the prototype machine,” he says.

In terms of product formulation, Erden referred to books and journals from the university library and employed a process of trial and error. “Even though I was busy with my studies, it was something that never stopped running through my mind,” he says. “My aim was to avoid artificial chemicals and I am proud to say that I have achieved this. But it is not only about the formulation. It is also about the perfectly arranged interaction of the machines, the method of production and the right ingredients, which are now protected by a patent.”

A unique product

According to Erden, SoundyCandy is the only confectionery product that fuses the conventional shape of a hard-boiled candy with the acoustic effects of popping candy. The transformation of granular shaped popping candy into a conventional hard boiled candy had been considered ‘technologically impossible’ in the literature.

“SoundyCandy is the first patented product of its kind. The associated patent covers the manufacturing apparatus to produce SoundyCandy, the product itself as well as the method used to produce it,” Erden explains.

“It is placed in the mouth as a whole piece, and remains active for six to 10 minutes. Once the candy is in the mouth, it starts making the characteristic popping sounds as it touches the intra-oral surface, from the first moment to the last,” he adds.

It is known that during eating, the three senses are activated – sight, smell and taste. SoundyCandy has also been developed to activate the other two senses – touch and hearing.

“The experience is so personal that we can never tell what people are going to experience. Besides that we got a lot of feedback to say that the candy provides a meditative, relaxing and soothing effect,” Erden explains.

The candy also has the potential to be used in other applications including:
• different temperature beverages – the popping effect is boosted when accompanied by hot drinks. When taken with ice cold drinks there is an instant implosion and a crackling sound
• pharmaceutical products, such as throat pastilles and herbal candies and some medicines that are difficult for children to swallow
• vitamins and supplements
• wellness – when added to bath water or to a glass of water, it produces sounds that promote meditation.

“We are concentrating on consumers between the ages of 16 and 45 – especially those aged 30-35 who remember the popping granules from their childhoods and will be happy to find something that reminds them of these times, but without the annoying effects, such as sticky fingers.
“I believe that SoundyCandy can also help to set your mind free by stimulating your five senses.”

Well received

Despite being one of more than 100 new products on display at this years’ ISM, SoundyCandy received the coveted ISM Innovation Award. “I was overwhelmed and full of emotion when I learned that SoundyCandy had won first prize,” says Erden.

“The reactions I experienced at the show were beyond my expectations,” he continues. “As a startup company we are looking for good and stable partnerships in every country to bring our candy to market,” he adds. “This can be done by licensing the patent or being in a partnership with other companies.”
SoundyCandy will be sold as a premium product. “People shouldn’t decide whether they want to buy gummy bears or hard boiled sweets or SoundyCandy. They should decide whether they want to buy high quality chocolate or SoundyCandy,” says Erden.

Erden believes that SoundyCandy is ideal for selling in coffee shops, restaurants and bars due to the different popping effects that can be experienced when eating it alongside hot or cold drinks. “We put a lot of effort into the design, packaging and branding of the product and my dream is to find the right partners from all around the world.

“My idea is that it can be spread by licensing the patent, which is connected to the trademark and letting everybody use the brand name.

“This will hopefully lead Soundycandy to become a worldwide brand and every company that licenses the patent will automatically get the marketing development, strategy and vision of SoundyCandy in one ‘package’ without any additional cost,” he says.

Despite what Erden hopes will be the overnight success of the brand, he acknowledges that it hasn’t been an easy journey. “The difficult thing was to bring something to life that only existed in my brain and to trust my instincts even though I had no guarantee that I would succeed in the end.” Going forward, Erden is certainly one to watch.