Here's What To Know About Let Them Eat Candles From Shark Tank

Next to colorful balloons and neatly wrapped gifts, celebrations usually aren't complete without delicious desserts like pink lemonade cupcakes and rainbow layer cakes. However, if you use conventional candles with your festive baked goods, those beautifully decorated confections can be ruined in an instant by errant dripping wax. This potential for a disastrous meltdown was enough to inspire Loree Sandler to start Let Them Eat Candles, a brand specializing in (mostly) edible chocolate candles. As of late, the Illinois-based entrepreneur and her husband and business partner Bob Michelson are heading to "Shark Tank" with hopes of scoring major deal on their unique product line.

Sandler was an architect turned stay-at-home parent when she conceived the idea for edible candles on her son's 12th birthday. With sheer perseverance and Michelson's help, Let Them Eat Candles launched in 2012. The brand began to experience real success in 2016 when these one-of-a-kind cake toppers were marketed on Grommet, an online marketplace for new and trending businesses.

Even though you can buy Let Them Eat Candles products directly from the company's website and find them in select stores nationwide, Sandler is appearing "Shark Tank" to pitch her unique novelty creations on Season 15, Episode 17. Next to potentially scoring a major investment, she has an astounding opportunity to educate the general public about Let Them Eat Candles' multipurpose treats.

Even the ultimate chocolate cake can benefit from some extra chocolate, but there are some things you might want to keep in mind before taking a bite of Let Them Eat Candles' lineup. Crucially, the wicks themselves are not edible. Let Them Eat Candles' wicks are made of cotton coated in paraffin wax. Upon lighting, the flame of these chocolate delights will remain ignited for roughly 55 seconds before self-extinguishing. Just removed the wick's end prior to chowing down on your candle.

To successfully create these unique novelty treats, Loree Sandler enrolled in The Chocolate Academy and Chicago's French pastry school to gain the skills needed to develop an edible yet functional product line. Working with various mentors and industry contacts, she honed in on a formula that produced encouraging results.

A surprising yet beneficial quality of these edible candles is that, once they're lit, the chocolate won't melt all over your precious cake or desserts. When the flame has extinguished, the chocolate directly under the burning wick may appear sticky, although the candle's exterior remains intact. Let Them Eat Candles' various designs come in packs of three, uniquely decorated with colored cocoa butter. Because of Sandler's steadfast determination and hard-working mindset, Let Them Eat Candles grew from a unique concept in 2012 to a fully-fledged, functioning business in 2024.

Upon being featured on Grommet in 2016, Loree Sandler and Bob Michelson had to find a way to expand their chocolate candle production. Under the limits of a new manufacturer in 2019, Let Them Eat Cakes became a vendor partner with Nothing Bundt Cakes and received their first grocery store commission of over 100 retail locations. However, Sandler had to find a new manufacturer amidst their growing success, temporarily delaying shipping and production.

Despite this setback, Sandler and her husband worked with the many contacts they had gained in the confectionary industry to keep Let Them Eat Candles in business. Based on posts from the company's Instagram page, Sandler and Michelson frequent food conventions and trade shows to continually promote their growing company.

According to the Let Them Eat Candles website, you can top perfect vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting with the brand's unique chocolate candles by buying them directly online or from select Cost Plus World Markets, Marianos, Publix, and Nothing Bundt Cakes locations. Additional purchase locations are listed online. Based on a recent Instagram post, the team is excited to release the company's new candle design which contains colorful number balloons etched in chocolate. Currently, you can only order this variety in bulk through the company website. Whether or not Let Them Eat Candles scores a deal on "Shark Tank," audiences may want to stay tuned to see what the future has in store for this distinctly innovative candle company.