ANDERSON, S.C. (WSPA) — The Anderson bakery The Sweetery will be showcasing a new version of its popular Wine Sticks at a large trade show in New York City in June. 

The Summer Fancy Food Show is known as the largest specialty food industry event in North America. The Sweetery’s Wine Sticks will be introduced in “snack pack” form in the “What’s New, What’s Hot” portion of the annual trade show. 

Anderson locals flock to The Sweetery for its legendary strawberry cake and its “uggly cake.”
“It’s got yellow cake on top and a cream cheese based,” Manager Ryan Jarahian says. “Once you taste it, you’ll keep coming back for that one.”

His family started the bakery about 30 years ago, and created the “Wine Sticks” after realizing that a product with a longer shelf life would do well with distributors. The idea to create a biscotti-like cookie to be dipped into wine came after seeing the success of wine related products at trade shows.

“We knew we could make something that had taste and was functional to go with wine,” he says.

The idea started out as a “Cake Crouton,” which got a shout out in Paula Deen’s food magazine several years ago as one of her top picks.

The crispy, biscotti-like Wine Sticks are made of cheesecake batter and come in 5 flavors: apple, chocolate, lemon, Carolina express and cinnamon espresso.

“They actually pair with the wine,” Jarahian says. “They bring out the flavor notes and they match to specific wines.”

For the past 5 years, the Wine Sticks have been growing in popularity at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City, which is happening this year June 23-25th.

Every year, buyers from big corporations like Target, Macy’s Dillards, Whole Foods and Kroger go shopping there for specialty food products. 

This June, The Sweetery is bringing single serving portions to appeal to airlines and department stores. Dillard’s has already requested an order for its stores nationwide.

For now, The Sweetery will produce Wine Sticks just for 50 locations, but owners have a goal in sight. The bakery is selling Wine Sticks at Biltmore as of December 2018.

“[Our goal is] that we will see them as a household name,” Jarahian says.

The Sweetery makes something similar for beer drinkers called Beer Buddies which come in a “rind n’ stout” flavor and a “yippee IPA” flavor.