BEE BRANCH — Brandi and Paul Goodchild’s business is a piece of cake.
The stand that holds it, anyway.
The Goodchilds, who live in Bee Branch, manufacture cake stands that are sold nationwide.
“l sell to everyone from a bride having a small wedding with Grandma making the cake, to Disneyland, who ordered our new cake stand and has been placing an order every two weeks,” Brandi said.
The couple’s company is Southern Merchandising Group, and the cake stands are sold primarily online at www.weddingfads.com.
“The cake stand is often the last thing on a bride’s mind,” Brandi said. “It’s not something the bride thinks about until she gets to the venue: ‘Oh, what are we going to put it on?’
“A lot of cakes, especially the stacked wedding cake, is put on a piece of cardboard with silver foil. Even very large upscale bakeries use those.”
“If you saw me, you wouldn’t think I make cake stands,” Paul said, laughing. “Dad grew up with it. That’s how the whole thing got started.”
Paul, a machinist by trade, said the business started in the 1950s with his grandfather, Charles Goodchild of California, who met a guy who made bride-and-groom cake toppers out of plaster.
“Granddad had just started in the plastic business in California,” Paul said. “It was the early beginnings of plastic. He told this guy he could make certain things for him out of plastic,” and they created a company, Coast Novelty.
Paul said that when his grandfather was living in California, he saw an ad for land that was “really cheap” in Arkansas, so he bought 700 acres and planned to move here some day. He spent a couple of months at a time in Arkansas.
Paul grew up in the business, too. His father, George, got equipment and set up shop in about 1990, making plastic plates and columns used for the wedding cake structures, and he expanded after Charles Goodchild died in 1992.
Paul said that, in the mid’90s, his father came up with a cascading cake stand, which uses different levels of separate stands.
Paul said his family never thought about patenting the design, and a competitor copied it and took it to China, where it is produced more cheaply with inferior material, he said.
George Goodchild owns Cake Deco Co. in Leslie and has an injection-molding machine that he uses to manufacture plastic cake stands and the plastic armature.
Pau l’s brot h e r, Br u c e, works with their father in the wholesale business.
Brandi and Paul struck out on their own in 2003 to get into the retail side of the business.
Paul said he does what’s called “slush cast” and “rotary molding,” and there are secrets he can’t divulge, he said, laughing.
The two primary products Southern Merchandising sells are Designer Cake Stands and cupcake stands.
Paul’s father came up with a cupcake-stand design, which Paul modified.
“I welded another socket on another side of the plate,” he said. “I sold gobs of those, and that’s still going pretty good.”
Competitors copied the design and had it made cheaply overseas.
“The only thing I have really unique and different is the Designer Cake Stand,” he said.
Learning from his family’s earlier mistakes, he patented the design.
“If anybody has the opportunity, they’ll certainly take it right over to Chinaand sell it dirt cheap,” Brandi said. “Disneyland isn’t going to buy something flimsy that collapses. They do very big, expensive weddings. We want to sell to customers that are going to buy from us for years.”
How did he come up with the idea?
“I just had a dream to tell you the truth,” he said. “I was thinking this plastic stuff was going out, so I was thinking, ‘What could I do to make something [the public] would like?’ I had this dream of this cake stand that looked like a diamond ring. So, I made it up.”
The cake stands have a band in the middle with “jewels.”
“You can hear what your family says about something - ‘Oh, that’s beautiful’ - but to get the public’s actual opinion, that’s the thing,” Paul said. “They love it.”
Disneyland has ordered the Designer Cake Stand on a regular basis, Paul said.
He had an idea to change the design to complement theme weddings. For example, beach weddings are popular, and Paul said he will replace the jewels with starfish or shells.
Paul said requests are pouring in for square cake stands, which he plans to start producing in the designer line.
The couple also import from India silver-embossed cake stands that have been popular through the years.
Brandi said their company has sold cake stands to hotels in Las Vegas, as well, and she’s seen their cupcake stand used on Food Network television shows, including Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee and by a repeat contestant on Cupcake Wars.
Paul said Brandi is the flour, if you will, that holds the cake-stand business together.
She has a degree in computer science from the University of Central Arkansas.
“I said, ‘You know what, I don’t want to sit in a dark room all day looking at a computer screen,’” she said.
“We have bad days like everyone else where you want to throw your hands up and quit. I guess I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t really like it.” One advantage to the couple having their own business, Brandi said, is they set their hours - albeit they are long ones.
They have two daughters, Meggy, 3 1/2 years, and Katy, 5 months.
Paul said his goal is to get a bigger building, because his 1,000-square-foot garage is overflowing, and the plan is to hire employees.
He also has some new products in mind that don’t have anything to do with cake.
“I’ve got a lot of ideas,” Paul said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.
com.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 53 on 03/22/2012