MEET YOUR {OUTSTANDING} MAKER - KIMBELLA’S CANDY
A multiyear Outstanding NZ Food Producer winner with a swathe of medals collected in 2020, 2021 and 2023, Kimberly Bell’s candy making business may not have started if it wasn’t for the support of her mother and her sudden, devastating loss.
Kimberly Bell’s journey to becoming a candy maker is marked by sadness turning to serendipity: channelling grief into greatness, all while demonstrating that often what we crave is the simple taste of home.
Born in California, Kimberly was a mental health nurse years before she settled in Christchurch with her husband. “I was always playing around in the kitchen, and it was something I was innately good at,” she says. “My mom was always pushing me to open a catering business, she’d say ‘you’re a great cook’ but I was satisfied, and I recognised the things you do as a hobby aren’t always fun once they become work,” she says.
Laughing off her mother’s encouraging words, Kimberly continued nursing, with cooking as a hobby. One year, Kimberly decided to explore candy crafting as a hobby. That Christmas, her mother gifted her a traditional glass candy thermometer to encourage her new hobby. However, Kimberly never opened it. Things took a turn in 2017, when Kimberly’s mother suddenly passed away. Kimberly explained that she had a difficult time with her grieving process given that she was so far away from her family in the US.
“There was nobody here that knew her, so I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, I couldn’t go to the places that we shared, I had a complicated grieving process.”
Attempting to grapple with her emotions, Kimberly turned to cooking. Perhaps by fate, chance or just sheer coincidence, when she opened her kitchen drawer, the wrapped candy thermometer her mother gifted her years prior rolled out. Inspired by her mother and childhood in the US, Kimberly began making candy that reminded her of childhood - peanut brittle.
“There was no reason or design for starting to make the candy, it was just an effort to stop my mind from going over and over about all the things I regret not saying or the time we spent. So I jumped into candy making to duplicate a favourite candy my mom would send in care packages from home; peanut brittle,” she says.
“I jumped into candy making to duplicate a favourite candy my mom would send in care packages from home; peanut brittle.”
Much like the reason she started making candy, people became interested in Kimberly’s products thanks to coincidence. “You can’t make small batches of candy in a pot, so my husband and I would go to weekly quiz nights at a local pub and share the candy with the staff and other teams. I initially was sharing it to try and get that balance of sweet and salty right, but people really liked it, they’d say ‘it’s so good!’ ‘You should sell it!’ and then I thought, why not give it ago?”
With a sense of motivation and ready to take on a new challenge, Kimberly began researching how to register her food production with the local council, as well as finding a commercial kitchen and selling her products at local markets. At least one element of establishing her new business was simple, picking its name: “Kimbella, was my mom's nickname for me, a combination of my first name, last name, and middle initial, making it a deliberate nod in her honour,” Kimberly explains.
Fast forward to the present day, Kimberly couldn’t be happier with how things have worked out. She says that being awarded gold and bronze awards at the Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards has been ‘delightful’.
“I didn’t think I’d win any prizes after I just started cooking candy in a tiny kitchen, I’ve had great growth, and our story is both exciting and unusual. There were times where I sat back and asked, ‘what have I got myself into,’ but we jumped into every opportunity that came our way. I had no idea how things would unfold but, when you’re experiencing grief, you’re not thinking like that, you’re working away, waiting for the sun to come up.”
Fortunately for those of us who love a little sweet treat, the sun has come up on Kimbella’s Candy. Her range has extended beyond Peanut Brittle and now boosts five flavours; the iconic Peanut Brittle as well as Almond Brittle, Cashew Brittle, Macadamia Brittle and American Buttercrunch - all can be purchased online via the website here or use the website to find stockists throughout NZ.