The Bellyache Candyshoppe takes its candy seriously. Purveyors of still-made yet hard-to-find candies such as appleheads, NECCO wafers, Boston baked beans, cherry ZOTZ, candy cigarettes and Charleston chews, the on-line company based out of Royal Oak has found a sweet niche in their market, regularly selling out of their most popular products.
Bellyache was started in 2004 by Scott Hagen and Michelle Moore, true fans of novelty candy. They soon launched Bellyache Records as a companion business. Their first CD,
Sweet Sounds of Detroit, was released in 2006 and sold out nearly its entire 1,000 copy run. It includes songs from local stalwarts SSM, The Sirens, Outrageous Cherry and The Hard Lessons.
Having already tasted success with its deluxe holiday candy packages, Bellyache will now take the obvious next step: combining the two arms of their company. They plan to release another compilation CD in October called
Ghoul's Delight: A Monster Party Record and will offer a deluxe version of the album that comes packaged with Halloween candy.
Next up are 45-RPM 7-inch singles from The Muldoons, The Dewtons and The Go, each of which will come with a candy bar made specially for the band. Hagen says, "Everything we put out on the label will come with something." He says their focus on vinyl records makes sense because, "The vinyl market is a very collectible market." Future planned releases also include a Gore Gore Girls single and a full-length CD from the Grande Nationals, a band for which Hagen plays bass.
Hagen says most of their orders come from out of state and that 75% are combination music-candy orders.
A future goal for Bellyache is the establishment of a bricks-and-mortar store. Hagen would like to locate "someplace with window-shopping -- and where there's kids." He says Ferndale and Berkley are possible locations and that the duo hopes to open the shop within the next year.
Source: Scott Hagen, The Bellyache CandyshoppeWriter: Kelli B. Kavanaugh
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