Candy crush

A childhood love for fudge led to a successful business selling the sweet treats

The Karachi Fudge Company launched in December 2014 at The Crafter’s Expo, an annual event that serves as a platform for home-based businesses, artisans and craftsmen, in Karachi. Soon after, we were invited to be a part of the Karachi Eat Food Festival in January this year. In the days leading up to the festival, one thought was on a loop in my head: Oh my God, I need to make a lot of fudge. And hot on the heels of that thought, was the question: “What am I going to do with all the fudge that I don’t sell?” At that point, the company was only a month old and I did not know how Karachi’ites would respond to it.

We sold out on the first day of the Karachi Eat Food Festival. And on the second day. On the third day, I had several very angry visitors at the company’s booth, complaining that they had waited three days for some fudge but it had been sold out each time. I’ve never been happier about being yelled at.

Today, the Karachi Fudge Company is just under a year old. The company was born from a passion of cooking combined with the desire to add a modern twist to a childhood classic — the little cubes of ‘milk toffees’ we would buy from school canteens. I wanted to bring back that sense of anticipation I would feel upon reaching the front of the queue at the canteen during recess and the sweet taste of victory once you got your hands on the precious packets of milk toffees that the canteen stocked. The idea was simple: the Karachi Fudge Company would invoke childhood sentiments that, just like the city of Karachi, leave you craving for more.



Initially, we started with three flavours: caramel and vanilla, mocha, and chocolate. Today, we offer nine flavours including mint, chilli, peanut butter, lavender, coco-a-nut, and orange, as well as a line of Karachi Cheese Cakes (cappuccino, double chocolate, lemon meringue, vanilla, and citrus burst) and Ooey Gooey brownies. We also produce a series of Infused Sugars that combine 100% natural spices, herbs and flowers to produce sugar tinged with the flavours of lavender, cardamom, chilli and cinnamon, vanilla and lemon. Initially stocking at just a few shops and supermarkets, the company has now expanded to nationwide delivery. The business has steadily grown as I have been invited to supply dessert tables for events, most recently the Ladies Fund Awards hosted at Governor House, Karachi. We’ve proudly helped many families celebrate the sweetest moments in their lives by offering customised wedding favours and baby announcements, birthday presents and Eid gifts.

A graphic designer by profession, I gravitated towards a career in advertising after I graduated. However, working for someone else was never part of my long-term plan. Ideally, I imagined, retiring while I was young enough to make the most of my life. “Freedom, here I come!” I would think when considering quitting my job in advertising. But achieving this freedom has come at the unexpected cost of some very hard work.

Pursuing my passion for food and desserts in particular, I trained as a pâtissier at the International Centre for Culinary Arts in Dubai. While learning to bake breads, cakes and cookies was one thing, making candy is a totally different ball game. Candy-making is a science — you have to factor in elements like humidity and the slightest change in cooking temperature can drastically affect the outcome. Failing to account for these variables can lead to a disaster faster than you can gobble down said candy. The difference between making caramel, toffee and fudge is literally a matter of seconds and gas marks. Hundreds of batches later, I can now tell when the fudge is ready just by a whiff of the product.

With my background in advertising and graphic design, it was instinctive for me to envision The Karachi Fudge Company as a brand. I wasn’t just putting fudge on the market that people may or may not enjoy — I was committed to an idea, a logo, a design and an identity. This approach is invaluable in the long run as it provides you with a blueprint for what will and will not work for your brand.



My family has been very supportive of the idea of starting up my own business. When the idea for The Karachi Fudge Company first came to me, my mother and brothers were far more excited than I was. Their confidence in my dream kept my doubts about the decision to leave my 9-5 job or the dream to start a confectionery company with no clue how to go about it at bay. They never let me think I couldn’t do it. The journey leading up to the moment when the fudge was launched at the Crafter’s Expo was exciting, but ultimately, it was nerve-wracking to stand there on that day and wonder how people would respond. I had no idea how the business would do and that’s an intimidating feeling.

I confess to thinking that being your own boss was a break from being tied down. It most certainly is not. One of the key motivating factors to making your business work is that you’re working towards making your own dreams come true. With this realisation, the levels of responsibility, the number of hours you put in, and the stress increases dramatically. You’re involved in every aspect of the business and your decisions have far-reaching consequences. On one occasion, I had to dispose of 1,500gms of fudge the day before a delivery because someone had been careless about where they had kept it. It wasn’t that the fudge had gone bad, but had I let this mistake slide, they would have done the same when I wasn’t looking. The fact you have others relying on you for their livelihoods also weighs heavily on your mind. I have a team of five people working for me and if they see me slacking off it instantly reflects in their attitude as well.

Ultimately, however, these factors drive me to do more. My daily routine sees me switching between several hats, from dealing with procurement to accounting to marketing and sales. It is nowhere near as easy as my paid employment was. What makes it all worth it? The satisfaction of seeing my hard work materialise into something special makes every second count.

Make it work

1.Don’t put it off: Striking out on your own will be the most rewarding thing you ever do, and it will also be the scariest thing. Letting the uncertainty stop you is something you will regret later.

2.Don’t listen to naysayers: Having a good support system and people who believe in you helps. Equally, have the conviction to pursue your dreams even if you do not have the benefit of this support.

3.Don’t worry about failure: Failing is the best thing that could happen to you. Failure is a modern concept: you do something and it may not work out, so you keep at it till it does. This is called ‘gaining experience’ and it’s very different from ‘failing’. It makes you grow and it makes you wiser. Not ‘failing’ doesn’t make you smart, it just means you haven’t really challenged yourself.

4.Don’t burn out: Take breaks. Take them often. You can’t give 100% when you aren’t 100% yourself.

5.Don’t sell yourself short: Invest in yourself. Nothing will give you better returns than what you put into yourself.

Rasti Ahmed is the creator of The Karachi Fudge Company. She tweets @itsy_mitsy and you can follow her on Instagram @the_karachi_fudge_company

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 6^th, 2015.