Making freeze-dried treats turns from hobbies into businesses

Nov. 9, 2022

The freeze-dried treats craze is reaching the Sioux Falls area with a variety of homegrown businesses.

While they all started as hobbies, one has shifted into a store-within-a-store, a second is keeping busy with special orders through Facebook, and the third has led to a venture with Stensland Family Farms.

Burkett’s Freeze Dried Treats

Justin Burkett and his wife, Monic Marquez-Burkett, bought their freeze dryer as part of a health kick.

“We were just going to go on the healthy side and freeze-dry fruits and vegetables,” Burkett said. “That took a 360-degree turn.”

Marquez-Burkett saw videos online about freeze-drying candy and told her husband about it.

“She said, ‘You can do all this crazy stuff with candy.’ We tried it, and we thought it was awesome.”

They took samples to their friend Lawrence West, who owns the restaurant Watecha Bowl.

“He’s like, ‘You guys got to do this,’” Burkett said of selling the freeze-dried candy. “Everything else has been a blur really.”

Last week, Burkett’s Freeze Dried Treats opened as a store-within-a-store in Watecha Bowl at 2305 W. Madison St. Other retailers also carry a few treats, including The Gas Barrel nearby, Westside Glass Emporium on Marion Road and a flower shop owned by a friend in Hawarden, Iowa. The couple also will be busy in the coming weeks with holiday-themed vendor shows.

Customers will find bags of freeze-dried Skittles, Jolly Ranchers, Caramel Apple Pops, Trolli gummy treats and more. Most bags of candy are priced at $5.

“Skittles and Jolly Ranchers are the big products that everybody goes crazy over. The Jolly Ranchers get like golf ball size,” Burkett said. “You bite into it like an apple. It has a crunchy texture, and the flavor is way more potent. … The Trolli gummy worms almost turn into a Cheetos texture with a little chewy center.”

Burkett’s does customized candy packages for special events and will make a specific candy if someone has a special request. Caramel Apple Pops found their way onto the inventory list after a customer requested them.

Not every candy works, however.

“There’s plenty of trial-and-error with this stuff. … We tried Nerd Ropes. That was a disaster.”

Burkett said it takes a couple of hours on average to freeze-dry a batch of candy. His commercial-size freeze dryer can do five trays at a time, and it’s basically running 24/7. Burkett said he had to quit his job at POET to keep up.

Harrisburg Treats

Kaitlyn Tilghman of Harrisburg also bought her freeze dryer this summer with the plan of making healthy snacks for her family. She and her husband, Chris, have two kids.

The family loves the freeze-dried banana chips, she said. “They’re not as hard as dried. They’re more like the texture of popcorn.”

Other families started noticing their snacks.

“I wasn’t even really intending to start a business,” Tilghman said. “We mostly used it for personal use, but people liked it and started asking me about it, so I started offering it.”

Earlier this fall, Harrisburg Treats sold items to the Country Apple Orchard, which stocked them in its retail store, and the business started taking orders from individuals through Facebook.

Tilghman offers freeze-dried candy, ice cream, fruit and meals for camping. She also has gotten orders for emergency stockpiles.

“I’ve done lasagna, pancakes, raw or cooked eggs. I’ve even made pancake mix. You freeze-dry the batter, it turns into a powder, and then you just rehydrate it by adding water.”

Most freeze-dried foods will keep for two or three decades.

Harrisburg Treats is moving into seasonal offerings now. Tilghman is selling stocking stuffers, sample gift boxes and an Advent calendar with 25 freeze-dried gifts wrapped as a little present with a message for each day. She also takes orders for special occasion gifts and will deliver them to homes and businesses in the area.

Tilghman hopes to find more retailers to carry Harrisburg Treats but doesn’t envision it becoming a full-time job.

Stensland’s Freeze Dried by Bergie’s

Ryan Bergan of Brandon bought his first machine for personal use and started making freeze-dried candy and fruit to sell at farmers markets and trade shows after his daughter, Haley, saw the freeze-drying process for candy on TikTok.

“She thought it would be a hit, and she was right,” said Bergan, who started Bergie’s Freeze Dried.

He added ice cream to his products and approached Stensland Family Farms about buying a soft-service ice cream machine. Bergan said brothers Jason and Justin Stensland, two of the partners in the family business, ended up trying the freeze-dried ice cream he had been making with the farm’s ice cream and loved it. That led to a partnership in a new venture, Stensland’s Freeze Dried by Bergie’s.

Bergan is setting up a freeze-drying kitchen at Stensland Creamery near Larchwood, Iowa, and they’ll sell about a dozen flavors of freeze-dried ice cream and several varieties of freeze-dried candy at the three Stensland retail stores in Sioux Falls and possibly other retailers in the region that carry the creamery’s products.

They’re hoping to have the items in the Stensland stores before the end of the year.

The process of freezing the ice cream to 60 degrees below zero and pulling the moisture out of it takes 26 hours, Bergan said.

With his hobby turned into a business, Bergan plans to eventually leave the sales and advertising job he has held for almost 20 years.

“Before two months ago, I thought I was going to retire with that job,” the 51-year-old said.

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Making freeze-dried treats turns from hobbies into businesses

The freeze-dried candy craze is reaching the Sioux Falls area with a variety of homegrown businesses.

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