NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Dixie, pocpress@gmail.com
Amelia Toffee Lands Sweet Deal with GATE Stores
Expansion Adds Local Jobs, New Product Offerings
Jacksonville, Florida (February 16, 2017) – Amelia Toffee Company has expanded its product line to enter the convenience store market. The artisan toffee company is now selling three newly-developed products at 26 GATE retail stores: Southern Heat Peanut Toffee, Bold Brew Peanut Toffee and Salty Bean Coffee Toffee.
Amelia Toffee continues to offer a separate line of innovative artisan toffees at select Northeast Florida locations including the Ritz-Carlton and Omni hotels. All of its toffee products are hand-made locally at the company’s commercial kitchen in Jacksonville’s San Marco neighborhood.
Anita Comisky, who founded Amelia Toffee in 2015, credits the JAX Bridges program for gaining the attention of GATE Petroleum Company’s President, John Peyton. A program of the JAX Chamber Entrepreneurial Growth Division, JAX Bridges provides education and connects small and medium-sized companies with opportunities to do business with larger corporations.
“This is really a nice match,” said Comisky. “The Chamber wants to promote local business growth, and we are contributing to that by adding two additional part-time people to supply GATE Stores. We’re keeping our local cardboard box suppliers busy, too.”
The GATE team has been great throughout the whole process, Comisky added. “They understand their customer profile, and worked with us on three unique flavors that would be compatible. The products, packaging and price point are different from the toffees we sell at other outlets.”
“GATE started in Jacksonville nearly 60 years ago as a small business with one gas station,” said Peyton, who, in addition to his role at GATE, will serve as Chairman of the JAX Chamber in 2018. “We are humbled that we have grown to the point that we are able to give back and help other small businesses in our community, such as Amelia Toffee, to grow and thrive.”
Peyton added, “The JAX Bridges is an invaluable resource to those entrepreneurs trying to grow their companies as it helps them find partners to achieve ambitious growth goals.”
Comisky said the product development process with GATE’s input has stretched her company’s candy-making creativity. “Since GATE stores sell a lot of coffee, we came up with the Salty Bean Peanut Toffee, which uses a rich, cold brew coffee brewed in Jacksonville. Bold Brew Peanut Toffee uses craft beer as an ingredient. The beer burns off during cooking, and leaves an interesting underlying flavor that satisfies the sweet tooth, but is less sweet than a typical toffee. Southern Heat Peanut Toffee uses our own blend of Sriracha chili peppers and salt. It’s selling just as well as the other two flavors.”
Three-ounce kraft window packages of Amelia Toffee are priced at $4.99 in most GATE stores.
For more information visit www.ameliatoffee.com (Please contact Dixie, pocpress@gmail.com for high-res product photos.)