GHOST® x SOUR STRIPS® ORIGIN STORY

GHOST® x SOUR STRIPS®: The Story Behind the Candy!

"Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been obsessed with candy. Whether it was sprinting to the concession stand at my brother’s baseball games for a pack of gummy bears or biking to the local store to stock up for a late-night video game session, I just couldn’t get enough of it.

While I enjoyed all types of candy, my true love was sour. There’s nothing like that mouth-watering anticipation you get just looking at sugar-coated gummies, followed by the puckering punch that only gets stronger the more you eat. That obsession stuck with me my whole life. I’d wander every candy aisle, not just to buy but to see what was out there. And over time, I grew frustrated—year after year, the same big brands kept releasing the same old products. Nothing stood out. To be blunt, most sour candy sucked.

At 28 years old, I decided it was time for something better. The industry needed a sour candy that actually lived up to the hype.

For the next two years, I threw myself into making that idea real. I cold-emailed and called every supplier I could find on the “Google machine.” Most ignored me, many turned me down, and the samples I did manage to get just weren’t what I envisioned. At one point, I nearly gave up. I even shelved the idea for a few months as I transitioned my life from Virginia to Texas. Maybe this was too big, too impossible—that had to be why no one else had done it.

But one night, driving down the flat roads of Sugar Land, Texas, I decided to give it one more shot. That choice changed everything.

I found a manufacturer, built a brand that stood out from anything on the market, and launched my product on my 30th birthday—September 9, 2019. From that moment, the journey took on a life of its own.

Over the next five years, my team and I grew one of the fastest-scaling sour candy brands of our generation. With zero prior experience—just a love for candy and relentless drive—we figured out how to produce, market, and sell tens of millions of bags. And in the process, we got people everywhere hooked on the bold, mouth-puckering experience that became our signature.

That’s how Sour Strips was born. Sour candy that doesn’t suck."

– Maxx Chewning