A Kinross couple have their sights set on growing their candle-making into a household name across the UK.
Gordon and Georgina Robertson run Ivy & Twine.
The business was born when the couple were organising their own wedding in 2019 and had gone over budget.
That meant an end to Georgina’s idea of having bespoke candles as favours for guests
That was, until she stepped in to make them herself.
And they were such a success, the couple threw themselves into candle making as a business.
Gordon said: “It’s going really well. We’ve got about 150 stockists and we’re starting to get in with some big retailers. It’s going from strength-to-strength.”
He said the business has managed to avoid huge disruption as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.
“The price point of the product is such that we seem to be right in the sweet spot.
“We’ve worked really hard to work with our suppliers to ensure we’ve not had a price increase. We haven’t put prices up since we launched four years ago.
“I think we’re one of the few home fragrance companies that can say that.”
Valentine’s Day business boost
He hopes the business will be boosted further by Valentine’s Day, and also Mother’s Day on March 19.
“We’ll be busy,” Gordon said.
“We’re running a special rhubarb and plum fragrance but it’ll have a ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ label on it, so it’s more targeted for that event.
“We have done that the past couple of years and we’ve had a great response from that.”
Previously, Gordon said the business grew exponentially thanks to a TikTok video posted by his wife.
The couple place a strong emphasis on their social media to promote the brand.
Gordon added: “We get a lot of success through social media.
“Our TikTok fan base is global now.
“We also try to benefit all our retailers, so we ran a campaign last year to try and help them.
“It was looking like a pretty questionable period, so we wanted to help support them.”
He hopes Ivy and Twine can crack the American market. But shipping products stateside is costly.
Gordon said: “We’re struggling with international shipping.
“The only solution I can think of to keep the price point where I want it, is to use a third-party logistics company.
“Sending an order from Britain to America, they’d be paying £25 or more in shipping for a £15 product.
“There’s not really a solution other than going through Amazon, and that’s against what our brand is all about.”
Kinross couple’s candle firm plans to add staff
The couple are still running the business themselves for now, but hope to add a member of staff soon.
Ivy and Twine operates from a 3,000 sq ft warehouse in Glenrothes.
“It’s something we’re going to have to seriously look at over the next month or two.
“We’ve picked up a well-known Scottish agent, and they’ll look after our retail stores here.
“They’ve got about 400 to 500 retailers they can open their books to for Ivy and Twine products.
“We also signed up a Welsh and south west England agent who has about 1,600 on his books.
“That’s potentially 2,000 extra stores that are going to be faced with Ivy and Twine products.
“Everything is looking good right now. We’ll see how these agents go but if they do as well as they think, we’ll need to think about staff.”
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