Sweet taste of victory for Madison 11-year-old

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - At the age of 11, Madison native Lily Todd runs a tasteful treats operation that would give any candy maker a run for their money.

Drumming up the idea of a cotton candy business at just 7 years old, Lily, alongside her business partner and mom, Tiffany Messenger, have taken that dream and turned it into a reality through the creation of Lily’s Magical Treats.

At the end of April, Tiffany says Lily’s Magical Treats will be coming up on four years in business. She remembers vividly when Lily was entertaining different ideas to start making money. First it was a garage sale Messenger recalled, then it was a snow cone business and finally they landed on a winner.

“She [Lily] came home one night and said what about a cotton candy business? And I’m like hmmm that actually sounds kind of fun, and you can package that and sell it,” and it doesn’t have to be on our driveway, laughed Messenger.

Lily’s mom says they did their due-diligence and the rest is history. “We read every book in the library on entrepreneurship and kids owning businesses...and it just went from there.”

Lily and her mom make organic dye-free candy and confections including the likes of cotton candy, lollipops, meringue, marshmallow, kettle corn and caramels to name a few.

The duo concoct their sweets using organic cane sugar, and have stayed busy selling the treats at the Greenway Station Farmers Market in Middleton. Not to mention selling goodies wholesale online, as well at events and school fundraisers.

Lily recalls the very first farmers market they attempted to debut their cotton candy. “Things weren’t that good so like there was a huge storm that happened, and it ruined everything, it ruined our first cotton candy machine and all of our cotton candy got destroyed,” Lily started. “And from there we just started going up, we got lollipops the next year and from there we’ve just been growing. And every year we get more cotton candy flavors and more treats, and now we have a lot of cotton candy flavors.”

And while you may be wondering well what do these creations taste like? Lily and her mom have stirred up more than 100 flavors of lollipop variations in addition to more than 70 flavors of cotton candy from from pickle and blueberry to watermelon, margarita, grapefruit, and IPA (hops).

As Lily performs a perfect spin as shown above, she says cotton candy art took some time to learn. “To have it really beautiful like this [referring to her current work] it took me about two years because at first I always made it not pretty,” so her mom would have to make it Lily explained. “So we spin it at the places now, before we just had it in the boxes, so now I get lots of practice and I’m really good at it.”

You can have Lily’s Magical Treats cater an event or request party rentals for their cotton candy carts, snow cone cart and popcorn machine.

The Madison LLC also sells items such as cotton candy cakes, and freeze dried Skittles, Jolly Ranchers and gummy worms; everything under the umbrella of a candy-lovers wildest dreams.

Lily and Tiffany join The Morning Show Thursday to discuss the ever-growing business.

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