Photography by JESSICA TURNER
YouTube put Misty Contreras on the entrepreneurial path.
Contreras was working at a mortgage firm 10 years ago when she got the idea for a side business to create and sell these extravagant chocolate-covered strawberries that can be customized with messages or made with candy colors and edible glitter.
She’d never actually made anything like that before; she just thought it was a good idea for a business, so she learned by watching internet tutorials. Orders came rolling in right away for her Gossip Strawberries, starting with family and friends who shared them on Facebook.
Then she realized, “Strawberries aren’t going to make me a million dollars. I need to go to the next thing,” she says.
The idea for Texas Crunchies came about because Contreras just likes when a Jolly Rancher gets down to the crunchy part at the end. “So I thought, ‘why not just make the crunchy part?’”
Think ice chips but make it candy.
“After the first month of launching, Central Market calls me,” she says. “And I totally bombed that because I had not perfected the candy yet. So it was just … it was awful. But it was a big learning experience.”
Texas Crunchies come in all kinds of flavors, like tropical punch or green apple; one of the best sellers is pickle, she says. Any of them can be made spicy or sugar free, and you can mix pickle essence into any of them. The company recently started making candy beer bombs, which look like jawbreakers that you drop into a pint to add mango-chili to your brew, for one example.
Contreras is from Duncanville, and she graduated from Bishop Dunne Catholic School in Oak Cliff. She and her 12-year-old son, Jonathan, live in West Dallas.
Texas Crunchies are available at the 7-Eleven store on Colorado at Zang, Tienda Choris at 833 W. Jefferson Blvd. and at texascrunchies.com. Davis Street Mercantile, 710 W. Davis, carries Texas Crunchies chili-lime Gusheez.
Contreras also recently opened a retail store in the office building adjacent to the Kessler Theater, 509 N. Winnetka Ave., suite 102C, which carries all of her candies and gummies, plus candied popcorn.
Her brush with a major retailer came too early
I’m ready for the next one, though, the next store that calls me.
Her motivation
My son became epileptic, so I kind of shut down mentally to a full-time job, and I just wanted to be at home with my son. I was just trying to make ends meet with the strawberries, and then with the candy. My parents have also been very supportive of me.
The struggle for financial independence
Don’t get me wrong, I had to do Uber Eats for a while. I’m to the point where I don’t have to do that anymore, thank goodness. But I did what I had to do to get where I am now.
