Being able to say that your job is to make candy sounds crazy. But for the Dockrat brothers, it’s their business, and their journey into confectionery is just as wild. Suleiman, Muhammed and Aboobakr never imagined that they would find themselves as the owners of Yimmy’s Custom Candy, manufacturers of handmade, customisable rock candies, lollipops, taffy and ribbons.
“I am the youngest of three brothers,” says Suleiman Dockrat. “Together we operate Yimmy’s Custom Candy, but how it came to be is actually crazy.”
Dockrat shares that he initially studied and qualified as a teacher, eventually taking it up as a career in 2019. His brothers, Muhammed and Aboobakr, on the other hand, were already entrepreneurs. “My brothers had a takeaway shop at the Dubai Centre in Mackenzie Park. It was a little samoosa shop. But due to unforeseen circumstances, the business started failing; Dubai Centre opened up another branch in Boksburg, so our anchor store started getting quieter by the day.”
It was in 2015 when Muhammed had the idea to make candy. “It became a passion project. He learnt through YouTube, but of course, the nuances of candy making are never shown.” Dockrat shares that his brother learned the hard way: He boiled a batch of syrup in his kitchen and poured it on the table. “His first mistake? He had a wooden table. Imagine 150 degrees Celsius sugar poured on a wooden table. He burnt his entire table and had to literally chop the candy off the table!”
The passion project continued on the side as the samoosa shop remained Muhammed and Aboobakr’s main source of income. However, in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Muhammed invested his savings into simple machinery and his time into making candy, while Aboobakr remained at the help of the takeaway shop. Soon afterwards, Muhammed invited Suleiman to join him in candy manufacturing “I accepted,” Dockrat shares. “We learnt everything together through guesswork and trial and error.”
Entering Entrepreneurship
It’s clear that entrepreneurship was never the main goal. “It just happened. None of us had any experience in being entrepreneurs until we became some. You could say it has been a recent development for us. Up until today, I still learn new things in the business world,” he explains. Whether it be customer service, creating a seamless digital ecosystem or learning smarter ways of streamlining operations, the brothers recognise that entrepreneurship means constant learning and working hard to achieve your goals.
“We are the type of people who are extremely hands-on. If something needs to be done, I will personally learn how to get it done. We are novices to this, but our idea outshines our abilities and encourages us to continuously learn.
“I truly believe that to succeed nowadays, learning one skill is not enough. You need to be skilled at a lot – especially as a business owner.”
Dockrat elaborates that they had absolutely no history of making candy. This sounds contrary to what he usually tells people: If you don’t have any knowledge of a field, do not pursue it.
“Entrepreneurship is about always being able to learn. Never be too proud to stop learning. Be humble enough to speak to anybody. And you will never stop growing.”
Your Require Some Sweet Skills
Dockrat explains that candy making is a science.
It’s not just the designs that are important. In fact, what you see on social media is the least amount of knowledge required to create the candy. Most of what you need to know relies on your knowledge of temperature, machinery and ingredients.
“When we started, we had no knowledge of the importance of temperature control. This is in the room that you are working in, as well as the actual temperature your candy needs to be. You need to ensure that your room is cool (around 20 degrees Celcius) and that you have an accurate thermometer. Another important requirement is humidity control.
“Machinery must be serviced regularly. Fortunately, we are very handy, and we service our machinery ourselves.”
For ingredients, Dockrat emphasises that it isn’t enough to have the right ingredients; you must understand why these ingredients are used. “Study them. If you know what they are, you’ll understand how to use them.”
Learning how to manipulate candy is another skill that cannot be explained. He believes that it’s a matter of trial and error. “You have to get the feel of the candy. Brainstorming a design is simple. Executing it is not. But after years of making it, the nuances become a part of your everyday. You even forget how these simple skills helped create a masterpiece.”
The Business at Hand
Yimmy’s Custom Candies offers a specialised, handcrafted product to an array of customers. In fact, their products are ideal for:
- Reception areas in waiting areas for corporates, doctors, dealerships, etc.
- Complimentary Candy for businesses to send with their orders
- Boardroom or conference condiments
- Restaurants that give candy with their bills
- Product launches
- Event hampers
“There are so many applications. Think about it: it’s enticing enough that people will eat a sweet with your branding on it. And they are delicious enough to make your company memorable. It’s honestly perfect for any branding.
“Plus, there’s more. What about weddings? Baby showers? Personal use?” Dockrat’s enthusiasm for their business is tangible.
“We started with handcrafted rock candies. And we still primarily make hard-boiled candy. However, we’ve found different methods of doing them. In the beginning, it was only handcrafted candy. Every letter and every design was made by hand. But that leaves you with limitations. And even though it’s a premium artisanal product. Unfortunately, not everyone cares,” he notes bluntly.
Looking at an example of why they expanded their product range, he uses the example of a company logo for a branded order. “A logo can be complex enough that it will be impossible to recreate by hand. So what do we do? This is where printed candy came into the picture. What if we could make a sweet completely plain, but we could print your exact logo on the face of the candy? We print on the actual sweet and leave the packaging completely transparent. It’s so much more unique.”
The Dockrat brothers have added another product option to their custom candy range. “We can now make custom lollipops as well. And this is not your general swirly Lollipops (which we do as well), this is custom-printed lollipops where your logo is inside the lollipops with a glass finish to give you a beautiful result.”
He shares that they are continuously looking to expand their range. “At the moment, we are dipping slightly into chocolate. I believe that will be a game-changer, but the process is completely different and requires more time to perfect, which, hopefully, we will.
Lastly, Dockrat notes that you don’t have to have a sweet tooth to be a candy maker. “You just have to be sweet,” he smiles.
