CEDR: Could you share how you got into the candy making business and ultimately into helping Cannabis related companies.
Wouter: My name is Wouter Tanis. I’m part of the Tanis family. We built out a brand around two years ago, OTC Candy Equipment especially for the cannabis market and other markets where we can process candy with any type of active ingredient. It stands next to our mother brand, Tanis Confectionery. It’s the market leader of equipment for the production of gums and jellies in the United States. My father started that twenty-five years ago. Before that, my grandpa also had a company in the equipment for the production of candies.
Our heritage goes back to just after the Second World War. My grandpa sold that company multipile times and my dad, who was already in the company grew himself to a position where he was a leading player in the industry. Once new leadership came in, my dad thought, well I can better do it myself. He started Tanis Confectionery twenty-five years ago (1995).
We first started building kitchens for all types of candies, and later we developed a complete system for the production of the gums and jellies. This focus and one stop shop approach made us unique. We are experts in that and are market leaders in the United States. Two years ago we saw the cannabis space coming up and we thought, how are we going to attack the cannabis industry?
CEDR: How has it been working?
Wouter: Cannabis is a different industry. It’s a unique, unique industry. And we’re working now with active ingredients. You need to process active ingredients in candy differently than normal candy. You have to make sure that you focus on the clean-ability of your process, as you don’t want cross contamination of your THC or anything else in products. We also focus on the accuracy. You want a constant product with a constant dosage of THC. And besides that, we also focus on the weight of the product itself.
CEDR: With respect to making candy for the cannabis space, are there other aspects beyond the active ingredient that are unique?
Wouter: You have to know how THC oil or powder reacts with your candy. So we have a lot of food technologies that work for us. Temperature also plays a big role. If it’s too high, the THC will lose its strength. Another factor of course is the taste. You can mask the THC flavor. We have the knowledge of how to make the candy taste great.
We take a lot of that historical knowhow that goes back to the 1940’s. Tanis Confectionery was originated from Ter Braak B.V., which built kitchens for companies like General Mills, so there’s all that knowhow of traditional confectionery manufacturing that’s been basically raised up to meet the needs of modern-day cannabis manufacturing.
CEDR: Thank you Wouter for the great insights!
