Empower Hour: Sugar Bliss

Sugar Bliss: Business Summary

Teresa Ging built Sugar Bliss from a cupcake-focused bakery into a business spanning retail, catering, delivery, and packaged foods. After six years in finance, she trained in pastry in Paris and returned to Chicago to launch the business in 2007. The company’s first brick-and-mortar shop opened in January 2009. Its current store is in the Palmer House Hotel, in Chicago’s Loop.

Strategy and operating playbooks

• Start with a focused product, then expand deliberately. Ging initially concentrated on cupcakes rather than launching with a broad menu. She later added seasonal flavors, macarons, cake pops, cookies, brownies, pastries, and other offerings.
• Differentiate locations and assess cannibalization. A second shop opened at the Palmer House in 2016 as a French-style patisserie with a broader menu, including crêpes and an espresso bar. The locations were close enough to compete for some of the same customers. Ging ultimately chose to focus on one store, citing customer overlap, operating demands, and the need to build capacity for retail growth.
• Match the channel to the product. Cupcakes are too fragile for nationwide shipping, so Sugar Bliss sells them locally. Cookies and brownies can ship nationwide; macarons and cake pops are shipped during cooler months. Packaged cookies created a path into retail.
• Build resilience into sourcing. Ging recommends maintaining relationships with more than one major food distributor. Multiple suppliers provide backup if a vendor stops serving small businesses and allow the company to compare prices on frequently changing commodities such as eggs and butter.
• Protect consistency through team standards. Staff need to understand the brand’s quality expectations. Products that are underbaked or damaged should not be sold.
• Treat a website as essential infrastructure. Sugar Bliss uses its website for pickup, local delivery, and nationwide shipping. Ging recommends that small businesses maintain a strong website and coordinate promotions across multiple channels.
• Use repeatable, multi-touch marketing. The company combines website updates, social posts and stories, email, flyers, and in-store signage for promotions. Ging’s early tactics included approaching hotel concierges with samples and mailing cupcakes to wedding planners—efforts that led to hotel business and media exposure.
• Prepare thoroughly for retail distribution. Moving into packaged foods required developing a shelf-stable product, working with a food scientist, and completing good manufacturing practice (GMP) certification and food-safety documentation. Ging advises building relationships with corporate buyers, using supplier-readiness programs, and staying in touch when a company is not yet ready to meet a buyer’s requirements.
• Use business-support organizations and networks. The Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC) helped Ging develop a business plan, assemble loan documents, and prepare to approach banks. She also recommends learning from other founders and participating in industry programs and conferences.
• Choose a name carefully. Ging stresses checking trademark availability before committing to a business name. “Sugar Bliss” was chosen after a similar name was unavailable in the restaurant category.
• Problem-solve rather than expect smooth operations. Ging advises anticipating disruptions, responding quickly, and adapting. For example, when the online ordering system failed to transmit orders, the company contacted customers and arranged a fix.

Growth, operations, and examples

• Site selection: Ging chose the Loop because she knew the area from her finance career and saw a gap in specialty bakeries serving downtown workers. Corporate catering was a key target: business customers could order hundreds of cupcakes rather than a dozen.
• Store access and build-out: The Palmer House location has entrances from both Wabash Street and the hotel. Ging had to build the hotel-side entrance and meet landmark-building requirements, which increased build-out costs. In winter, the street entrance is sometimes closed and customers enter through the hotel.
• Retail expansion: Sugar Bliss launched packaged cookies in 2022 and was in 25 Walgreens stores at the time of the webinar. Other channels mentioned included Compass Group and Macy’s.com. Ging said the company had received a “golden ticket” from KeHE, a distributor she described as serving more than 6,000 retailers through 13 distribution centers, with a launch expected that month. The company was also in discussions with other retailers, hotels, and airlines.
• Walgreens pathway: Ging joined WBDC’s Top Shelf program, sponsored by Walgreens, to learn about retail readiness. A Walgreens buyer contacted her during the program, and they worked together for about a year while Sugar Bliss developed a shelf-stable cookie and completed manufacturing requirements. Walgreens later selected Sugar Bliss for its Five Forward program. Ging said the company would expand with Walgreens over the following four to five years.
• Business interruption: A power outage closed the original shop for a month. Most of its business shifted to the Palmer House location, reinforcing Ging’s view that the company did not need two nearby stores.
• Seasonal product planning: Cupcake flavors rotate every two weeks, while two seasonal macaron flavors rotate monthly. Examples include boba tea and passion fruit cupcakes, green tea and mango macarons, and special menus for holidays and events. Red velvet was identified as the store’s most popular cupcake.
• Brand and impact initiatives: For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Sugar Bliss offered themed flavors and donated 10% of proceeds to an Asian American student- and career-development organization. For packaged cookies, the company said 10% of proceeds support women and minority entrepreneurs, including scholarships for WBDC certification. Sugar Bliss also uses sustainable packaging and partners with Plastic Bank. Ging reported that each bag of cookies funds the removal of five bags of plastic, and that the initiative had removed about 50,000 plastic bottles and more than 2,000 pounds of plastic while supporting over 10 families.

Funding and key figures

• Ging received a $175,000 loan, consisting of a term loan and a line of credit, and also used an SBA loan program. She had three banks consider her application; two approved it. She chose the bank whose treatment and support she valued rather than simply selecting from the available approvals.
• The first shop was about 900 square feet. It opened on January 5, 2009, during a recession, after construction delays caused the business to miss the holiday season. The first Valentine’s Day promotion sold out by noon.
• Ging described Sugar Bliss as nearly 17 years old at the time of the webinar. She said surviving the first three years is a meaningful milestone for a new business.
• Retail milestones: 25 Walgreens stores; KeHE described as serving more than 6,000 retailers through 13 distribution centers; Walgreens expansion planned over four to five years.
• Impact figures: 10% of packaged-cookie proceeds allocated to entrepreneur support; five bags of plastic removed per cookie bag; approximately 50,000 bottles and more than 2,000 pounds of plastic removed, supporting over 10 families.
• No revenue, margin, customer-acquisition-cost, or other financial-performance figures were provided.

Presenters and source

• Teresa Ging, CEO and founder, Sugar Bliss
• Ken Meyer, Commissioner, Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP)
• Stella, BACP moderator and chat coordinator (surname not given)
• Source: Chicago BACP “Empower Hour: Sugar Bliss” webinar