Year 2011. Mercedes Toscano and Jorge Núñez leave their native Galicia and head for Chile. He had a job opportunity in the Andean country and his family moved with him. Only a year later, and despite the fact that Núñez worked in the construction sector and Toscano in the banking sector, they decided to start their own business. On 25 October 2012, they opened the first candy shop in Chile. But the desire to return to the land encouraged them to return to Galicia in 2019, where they continued with their company Mininolas but betting on a different concept: sweets with vitamins, sugar-free, gluten-free, lactose-free and without milk protein. “They are the sweets of the future,” assures Toscano.
“In 2017, a law against childhood obesity was passed in Chile that directly affected us,” explains Mininolas. That was the impetus that the Galician couple needed to start manufacturing their own brand that complied with the new legal requirements. This is how Flipa was born, an 80-gram bag containing 40% fewer calories than traditional sweets. “Jorge did a lot of research into the formula and, for the first time, we adapted to the market and started selling our own brand,” recalls Toscano, looking back six years.
Return to Galicia
The definitive step to consolidate their idea was the return to Galicia in 2019. After studying the market, they began to sell the Flipa brand of sugar-free sweets in shops with products suitable for diabetics and pharmacies. “Then came the pandemic and we found out that there were many companies producing nutritional supplements. That’s when we created our second brand, Vitanolas. They are also sugar-free sweets but with different compounds”, Toscano continues. According to the founder of the Galician company, some contain melatonin, others vitamins adapted to children or adults, or even biotin, which is used to strengthen hair and nails. “It is still a sweet and, therefore, eating it is associated with a sweet moment. But now it has other benefits because it is now part of a pharmacological concept” Toscano points out.
With Flipa and Vitanolas as consolidated brands, the founders decided to go one step further and have just embarked on setting up a confectionery factory in Nigrán. As Toscano explains, projects began to arise with other companies that suggested including new ingredients, such as medicinal plants, in Mininolas sweets. In addition, the factories they were working with did not respond to their interests, so they decided to set up their own. “Now that we have our own plant and more than 10 years of experience in the sector, we are ready to make different sweets,” Toscano adds.
However, there are still a couple of months to go before the factory is up and running. The founders of Mininolas estimate that it will be up and running between the end of October and the beginning of November. In addition to continuing to manufacture sugar-free sweets and to continue with the Flipa and Vitanolas lines, they have other projects in mind. “We want to give special importance to the I+E department to work with natural products, plants, and even go for something native to Galicia“, says Toscano. They have in mind to start working with the galls of oak trees which, according to the company, “have very powerful anti-inflammatory properties”.
More than a decade of experience
With more than a decade of experience in the sector, Toscano not only looks to the future, but also to the past. Its journey began in October 2012 with the opening of the first candy shop in Chile because, according to Mininolas, at that time there were no conventional sweet shops in the Andean country. In other words, bulk sales. The founders of the company admit that the beginnings were not easy and that they worked very hard, but the results soon came to light. Just four years after starting the Mininolas project, they already had 25 shops open throughout the country, including their own stores and franchises.
“I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Although I really liked my job at the stock exchange, it was decisive to have a child”, explains Toscano. They travelled to Chile in 2011 with an eight-month-old baby and without knowing anyone on the other side of the Atlantic. That is why the couple took the plunge into entrepreneurship and bet on a business model that worked in Spain. “We started with no experience in the sector. We made our first purchase of 100 kilos of sweets because we didn’t know what was going to happen”, recalls Toscano.
Now, 10 years later, they have changed the original concept of their company, returned to earth and opted for healthier treats. “Our main objective is that when you have to take a medicine you take it as if it were a larpeirada, that it reminds you of your childhood and is a pleasant moment“, argues the founder of Mininolas. For the moment, Flipa and Vitanolas are already on the market, proving that nobody is bitter for a sweet, even when taking it is obligatory.
