So many people have expressed an interest in how our company started that I decided to insert a brief history here for those of you who would like to know more about us. Thank you for asking!I originally started a company called Roxy’s Gift Boxys because I wanted to have a business that would be more of a family business. I had moved my mother to Tucson from California and I thought having a family-oriented business would provide an opportunity for us to spend more time together.
We did some thinking about a family business and decided upon gift baskets with fudge. It sounded like a great combination and seemed easy to do. Little did I know what direction the business would take!
In November of 2002 we marketed our baskets to about 10 people and we were overwhelmed with holiday orders. We continued to develop new fudge flavors and eventually I had created more than 40 flavors of fudge (Fhantom Fudge)! We decided to market our Fhantom Fudge under a new company name - Sweet Rustler Treats.
Then in May of 2003 my brother made an interesting request. My brother is diabetic and, of course, could never really eat a lot of my fudge because it was made with sugar. After seeing how much I enjoyed creating new products and fudge flavors, he asked if I could try to create some sugar free fudge. Since I had never made any sugar free products before I started out by doing a search on the internet. It didn’t take long to realize that there really wasn’t anything comparable to what I was doing with my fudge. I decided to simply start from scratch and create my own recipe for sugar free fudge.
It took six months of research and experimentation to come up with a sugar free fudge that literally tasted better than my sugar fudge!
I then began translating as many of my sugar fudge flavors as possible into sugar free fudge flavors. Before long we had more than 50 sugar free flavors! Our sugar free fudge recipe is very unique: it contains no butter so it never requires any refrigeration and has a wonderfully long shelf life. A bonus of the sugar free fudge is that it is also low in carbohydrates.
In June of 2004, another sugar free idea was born. I was discussing sugar free products one day with my brother (who is diabetic). He insisted that he had purchased some sugar free cocoa quite recently. I disagreed with him and asked him to go to the store and bring me back samples of the sugar free cocoa. He went out but returned empty-handed. Sure enough, there were no truly sugar free cocoa mixes on the shelves. All of the “no sugar added” products that people think are sugar free actually have 7-8 grams of sugar in every 6-ounce serving! I simply could not understand what could be so difficult about creating sugar free cocoa (and I love a challenge)!
It took me only a few weeks of experimentation to perfect our “almost” sugar free cocoa. Our cocoa has only 1 gram of sugar per 6-ounce serving – as close to sugar free as you will find. We started with 8 cocoa flavors and added more every month until we finally had more than 30 flavors to choose from. Our sugar free cocoa was originally marketed under the name Sugar Freedom - a name we still use.
In 2007, as our cocoa was growing in popularity, we began discussing changes we could make to update the product and make it even more appealing. Since we are headquartered in Arizona (a place we truly love) it was natural to design with the southwest in mind. We knew we needed an inventive way to convey to everyone just how very different our cocoa product is from anyone else's product. We decided it was a "crazy", or loco, because it was available in so many more flavors than any one else's product, could be served in so many interesting ways and was nutritionally so very versatile.
Thus was born Arizona Loco Cocoa!
Now my brother (and many other people with diabetes or special needs) can enjoy truly great tasting cocoa (hot or cold) anytime they want!
By the way, for anyone who does not require sugar free cocoa, we also make all of our flavors (now more than 38!) in a sugar version as well!
I am very proud of our products and look forward to creating more new tasty treats for you.
Enjoy!!
