The way from Hamburg to the land of milk and honey does not lead through a mountain of sweet rice porridge, but 25 kilometers north on the A7 motorway, which connects the Hanseatic city with Flensburg and Kiel. There, in the middle of Hamburg’s bacon belt, the municipality of Henstedt-Ulzburg (Segeberg district) has set up an industrial park on the edge of the autobahn, which has made a significant contribution to the economic upturn in the municipality.
More than 28,000 people now live in Henstedt-Ulzburg, and there are more than 3,000 companies with more than 6,000 employees. There is also the “land of milk and honey”, which operates under the name “World of Sweets”. However, the “sweet world” is housed in a rather sober, 4,000 square meter hall, in which cardboard boxes are stored on top of cardboard boxes on long rows of shelves that reach up to the ceiling. “The content is also important for us,” says founder and boss Markus Heide, 52. “Can’t you smell that?”
The Bambina chocolate from the former GDR is also available here
Yes, only the fine smells wafting through the spacious hall are not clearly identifiable. As is the case with up to 10,000 different products that are packed in the cardboard boxes here – from classic fruit gums of all kinds, and sometimes from the 3-D printer, to classic liquorice and chocolate to sweets of all flavors. Not to mention the biscuits, the salty snacks, the exotic sweets or the effervescent powder from a seemingly long-forgotten world.
“Because of forgetting,” says Heide. “With us you can find almost everything sweet or salty that can still be found here and elsewhere – see the Bambina chocolate here, a hit from the long-lost GDR.” But that’s also found in the boxes: Twix with speculoos, elk gummies with eggnog flavor, Bud Spencer chips, baked beans flavor, or woodruff-tasting crocodiles. And tons of other calorie and sugar bombs.
It all started for Heide with liquorice. His father-in-law sold the sweets made from the liquorice root in his pharmacy in neighboring Norderstedt, from sweet and mild to extra salty and in hundreds of variations. For him, a good side business, because the “black gold”, especially valued by North Germans, is still considered a remedy for colds and lung diseases in these licoriceophile areas. “My father-in-law had around 30 varieties on offer,” says Heide, who entered the liquorice business in 2003 and then immediately began to set up online sales.
The dealer has already moved to larger halls four times
The IT specialist, who had worked as a project manager at a Bertelsmann subsidiary for years, brought with him enough technological know-how, but above all the conviction that enough fans would be found online for the disparagingly called “bear dirt” in the south. So he decided to use the Internet to boost sales to the south. Within a short time he rose to become one of the largest liquorice distributors between the North Sea and the Alps.
Reason enough for Heide to change its name from liquorice shop to World of Sweets as early as 2004. “My customers asked me more and more for other sweets,” he says. “Above all, those that were difficult or no longer existent in German retail.” Heide’s ambition was awakened. Personally, he wanted to fulfill his long-cherished dream of building something on his own responsibility and independently and, as he emphasizes, “being in control of my time” and at the same time “having fun with the things I do”. As an entrepreneur, he decided to set up the confectionery shop on the Internet.
He has long since fulfilled these dreams and goals. Heide’s company has been number one in online mail order for confectionery for years. And there won’t be many larger online retailers of this type in Europe, he believes. “If any.” The Heide has achieved this by constantly expanding its range and expanding its clientele. Over the years, the dealer has moved to larger halls four times. “That had to be because of our rapid growth.”
Today, Heide has products from more than 300 manufacturers from around 30 countries in its range. It is sold in Germany and in various European and sometimes overseas countries to end customers, major customers, resellers and retailers, with private individual customers being the largest target group with around 60 percent. “We have set ourselves the goal of offering customers a unique range of products with classic brands, nostalgic products and more and more new products,” says Heide. “We just try to fulfill every wish, however big it may be.” The value of the shipments that his almost 100 employees put together varies accordingly – from five euros to as much as 50,000 euros per delivery.
Last year, World of Sweets delivered almost 475,000 orders, with sales of almost 27 million euros. That was an increase of almost 40 percent compared to the previous year. And this growth will continue this year too, “because people will soon have thrown their resolutions to nibble less, in Corona times, overboard,” believes Heide. “As early as January, our sales were 100 percent higher than in the same month last year.”
The entrepreneur wants to win new customers with the “Home Office” snack box
Heide’s company benefits from the fact that the confectionery industry, which is also strongly represented in the Hamburg economic area with companies such as Nestlé’s Wandsbeker Chokoladen-Werk or Stollwerck in Norderstedt, has generated stable sales (a good 14 billion euros) in recent years. At the same time, online business with private customers continues to grow and has received an additional boost from the corona pandemic.
Heide expects World of Sweets sales to rise to 35 million euros this year. Not least because innovations such as the “Home Office” snack box were launched on the market. Heide is optimistic that he will be able to bind his regular customers more closely to the company with such offers and at the same time win new private and business customers. The company boss has already planned sales of 50 million euros for 2022. And we made provisions for that too. “I bought another warehouse in the immediate vicinity,” he says. “With expansion reserves, of course.”