A Confectioner in the UK

May I begin by asking what your name and profession is?

Yes, my name is Ryan and I am a sweet store manager, if you like.

Where do you work, Ryan?

It’s Charlie’s Sweet Emporium in the South Lanes in Brighton.

So why did you choose this profession?

Because sweets are fun. I wanted to get back into retail after working in lesser jobs and it just seemed like the right place to be able to grow.

So could you perhaps talk through what a typical day looks like when you’re at work?

We do lots of ordering, lots of cleaning, making the store look good, presenting products, wrapping for customers and just spending time and trying sweets. Just trying to get customers to try something new and have a good time when they leave the door. Pretty much.

So I guess that you eat a lot of sweets then?

You can never get bored of sweets. You can never get bored of sweets. If you get bored of one thing, you just move on to something different. And by the time that you have got round everything, you’re back at the beginning and you start all over again.

What personal qualities do you think that you need to do this work?

You need to be approachable, friendly, excitable – that helps. You need to be kind of driven and know what needs to be done, think on your feet as well.

Could you describe perhaps a service that you provide?

We do a lot of gift-wrapping, for parties. We do bar mitzvahs occasionally. That’s quite a popular one, bizarrely. Weddings, birthday parties, small children as well as adults. And just, we wrap loads of stuff on site and we’re looking towards trying to do little gift bags, like party bags that we actually send off outside of the store as well.

What would you say you like best and least about your job?

Least is probably the amount of time I have to spend in the office doing the orders. But on the flip side of that, the best part is probably getting new products in and things that we haven’t seen before. Talking up the products to the customers. Just getting people excited, because here we don’t – I like to think that we don’t sell sweets, we sell nostalgia. I just want people to leave having a good time and having enjoyed themselves while they’ve been here.

And how do you think this line of work would change in the future?

I think sweet shops are making a big comeback recently. I think we are the biggest in Brighton and we’re doing quite a big range. But there’s little ones popping up all over the place, so I think it can only grow. I think it can just get more exciting. Confectionary companies are realising that things are coming back, so there is a lot more new products and a lot more big names doing sweet things. I just think it’s going to get bigger and better.

And finally, where do you see yourself in five to ten years’ time?

Hopefully either owning my own shop, or working possibly for a similar type of retail company if not this one, but much more, kind of like a head office. You know, maybe running a few shops, something within this line of work, because I don’t really want to leave now that I’m here.