The first thing that hits you when you walk through the door of sweets wholesaler Hancocks’ Bristol depot is a striking scent of sugar.
The second, is the vibrant array of colourful jars and boxes full of pick and mix favourites, from fizzy cola bottles to strawberry lace, piled high on the shelves of the vast warehouse in Avonmouth.
The store’s manager Daniel Hancock asks if I noticed the distinctive aroma as I walked in, and laughs that he has become accustomed to it over the 12 years he has been with the business.
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The history of Hancocks stretches even further back. The business was originally founded by Ray and Elizabeth Hancock in 1962, when the couple started wholesaling confectionery from their sweet shop near the Midlands town of Loughborough.
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The 60-year-old business has since grown to 14 cash-and-carry outlets stretching from Glasgow to Portsmouth. The firm’s Bristol base, which is itself celebrating its 40th year of trading, stocks around 5,000 branded and own label products, such as its Kingsway pick and mix brand.
While its colourful range of confectionery suggests a sense of joyous chaos, the layout of Hancocks’ Bristol store carefully reflects its regional base of clients.
As Hancocks’ area manager for the South Ian Hayes, explains, a more expansive assortment of pick and mix, rather than big name chocolate brands, can be found at the Bristol store, in a nod to the various visitor attractions across the South West’s key hospitality sector.
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“Seaside towns are catered for on the shop floor, we’ve got the rock and the hard boiled sweets, lollipops and the pick and mix” Mr Hayes said, adding: “There are a lot of fairground and show people who shop in here and they tend to change their events seasonally, so they may be a summer fair at the minute, which is why we are currently catering for lollipops and the cables, and then it might go to a winter wonderland type fair, and then all of a sudden it will be marshmallows for roasting, or candy canes. We know that and we order accordingly and get ourselves set up for that as the seasons change as well. We’re very adaptable.”
Hancocks has been supplying leisure outlets and theme parks across the South West since its regional base was first opened by the Lord Mayor of Bristol in April 1983.
The old classics have endured throughout that period. Mr Hancock, who is not related to the eponymous family who founded the firm, tells me that the best-selling sweet across the business is pick and mix bubble gum bottles.
Mr Hancock said though that like many other trades the sweets industry has seen its fair share of trends over the years, which the company has had to respond to accordingly.
“At the moment, we’ve got a big sour licker or spray trend going on”, Mr Hancock explained. “There are a couple of brands that have been very big. Brain Licker is one of them. That has had a huge following. I don’t even know half of what people are doing with it, they’re making cocktails out of it.
“They take a product and just tweak it to do all types of weird stuff with it, drink it, lick it - there is a whole pickle craze going on, where they are taking wrapped sweets and putting them around a pickle - who knows who came up with that one! All the trends change, but generally, as a rule of thumb, anything that is sour and blue seems to be going really well.
“Nobody knows how the trends come about, because if we knew what the next trend was going to be we would be laughing, and stock pile! We’re lucky that we have such a good stock holding that when these trends come up we can normally fulfil quite a lot of it.”
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And it’s not just on its shelves where Hancocks has spotted cyclical change, it's also the variety of clients who have been coming through its doors, or shopping with it online.
During our tour of the depot - once a filming location for an episode of TV series Skins - Mr Hancock and Mr Hayes explained that during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many workers were placed on furlough and pick and mix sweets became harder to get hold off amid concerns about cross contamination, people began setting up their own online businesses bagging up pick and mix.
Mr Hayes said: “That just boomed overnight. Quite often we would supply them with pick and mix and they would open it up, putting it in their pots, sticking their labels on it and it was becoming their product. Some of them are still going strong, some have gone back to their normal jobs and they’re doing it part-time, and some have gone completely. But I would definitely say it was a very successful period of time.”
Mr Hancock added: “A lot of these businesses popped up, people weren't sure if they were going back to jobs, they were looking at bits and pieces on the side. The other thing, when everyone was panic buying, getting their beans, bread and pasta, no one thought about getting some sweets or chocolate. But then suddenly with the shops closed there was a lot of demand for pick and mix.”
While the national lockdown appeared to stimulate demand for its products, Mr Hancock said the resulting shut down of some of the firm’s key South West clients within the hospitality trade did have “a knock on effect” on the wholesaler.
Mr Hancock said: ”Luckily, when the sanctions started coming into place and everyone had their required two-metre gap and masks, [business] started to come back alright. A lot of people used to go abroad, and then of course the staycation became involved, so for all these businesses, which did suffer as they had to shut, all this money came back when people started to go to them in Weston-super-Mare, for example.”
Mr Hayes said the wider economic conditions and the cost of living crisis posed challenges, even to a storied brand like Hancocks, adding: “Raw material costs have probably been the biggest challenge and trying not to pass on to our customers. The challenge for us is how we negotiate with them not to pass it on and that’s been the biggest challenge.”
Despite this Mr Hayes said Hancocks was a business that “won’t stand still” and was looking to grow and expand. The wholesaler’s parent company Innovative Bites was acquired earlier this year by private equity A&M Capital Europe.
Mr Hayes, who has previously held management roles with retailers such as Sainsburys and Holland & Barret, predicted that Hancocks would continue to endure, owing to it being “a very people focused business”.
He added: "We’re very focused on having great people working for us in great depots, looking after great customers. I have been in retail for 20-odd years and I have never known a business as people centric as this one which is fantastic. That's why it will continue to be successful going forward.”
Mr Hancock said: “This is a big year for the business and a chance for us to meet with all the suppliers and retailers who have supported us and been an integral part of the Hancocks’ journey. The business has changed a lot since those early days to meet changing shopping habits and tastes of the retailers and their customers. I’m excited to see what the next 60 years will bring - certainly more exciting, sweet treats.”
Mr Hancock admitted that being able to try the ever-changing range of sweets and confectionery Hancocks supplies was “one of the perks of the job”, adding: “The best way of selling something is understanding what you sell.”
Mr Hayes agreed, adding: “You can’t tell someone something tastes amazing if you haven’t tasted it yourself. Head office are very good at sending out samples for the guys to use and try, in moderation though, I don’t think anyone goes hell for leather on it!
“But there is always a buzz of excitement when something new comes out and you get the chase to try it. You end up walking around with a blue tongue speaking to people because you have tried a new product - it's great and it's so much fun!”