How a Mullingar sweet shop has embraced viral food trends
When David Quirke opened Sugarplum Sweetery in Co Westmeath just three years ago alongside his wife, Denise, it was partly driven by a desire to balance their healthy restaurant Wholesome, which they'd opened three years prior, with something more "naughty".
Creating one of the most viral and coveted sweet treats to hit the Irish food market in years was probably not on their five-year plan.
Sugarplum Sweetery, a multicoloured and eye-catching shop in Mullingar, had been drawing sweet fanatics with its selection of gummies and chocolates since it opened, but it wasn't until they launched their take on the viral Dubai chocolate bar that business truly started to boom.
"We've always been a social media-led brand", Quirke said at TikTok's 2025 Trend Forecast event in Dublin on Thursday. "Everything we do, we're obviously massively inspired by Willy Wonka, everything is nostalgia-based. When you come to our ship it's all about an experience. It's bringing back in that nostalgia."
Heavily inspired by the likes of Roald Dahl, and anything that excites the imagination as well as the stomach, Quirke recalled seeing how the original Dubai chocolate bar by Fix - a thick milk chocolate bar filled with pistachio cream and crispy Knafeh pastry flakes - captured the attention of viewers across the world, before dying down again as homebakers tried their hand at copying the recipe.
The couple travelled to Dubai to taste the original, spending a month tweaking their recipe at home to create a version that uses Irish butter and other "secret ingredients".
Taking a new product from testing to market is an arduous process, and one made more challenging for the team due to the time of year:
"When we seen that there was a massive demand for this, it came around Christmas, which is our busiest time of the year - about a third of your yearly turnover would come in December. To add on [the] Dubai [bar] and a massive viral hit, we had to hire huge amounts of staff so quickly, we had to train them up, we had to expand our kitchens, buy new equipment, and all of that took a few weeks or a few months, but we expanded as fast as we possibly could."
Despite this, there was still a four-week delay for customers waiting to get their hands on the bar - something that only added to its appeal.
"We thought that might be damaging to the business, that people might not want to wait as long, but it went even more nuts when people were waiting four weeks. Everyone wanted to jump into the queue to get chocolate."
Now, six months after the launch, the Sugarplum team is still working 24-hour days. Far from being a one-off viral hit, Quirke believes their take on the pistachio-filled bar isn't going anywhere.
"It's all down to reorders. It's something that we feel will still be our number one product in five years' time."
Having tasted virality once, it's not surprising then that the team has embraced novelty and catching trends as they come: "You become addicted to that viral nature of it. Even six months on the company is very viral on TikTok and that's down to jumping on every trend that's there."
Their latest launch - thick-filled chocolate bars packed with indulgent ingredients - is another response to dessert bars, which have proven popular on social media.
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