You may pack freeze-dried fruit for your camping trip or settle for freeze-dried coffee in a pinch.
But what if you crave a sweet cup of John’s Water Ice in the dead of winter?
There’s now a freeze-dried version of the South Philadelphia tradition, created through a partnership between John’s owner Anthony Cardullo Jr. and longtime friends Phil Kramer and Tommy Sandelier, who run Sugar Crunch Candy, which manufactures a line of freeze-dried candy popular on TikTok.
It starts with John’s water ice formula, which is freeze-dried to transform it into a crunchy candy. The cherry will give you the same red lips and tongue, and the lemon has John’s usual sweet-tart tang. Bonus: It won’t melt all over your shirt or inside your car.
Kramer and Sandelier, who briefly owned a Sugar Crunch retail store nearby, were casting about for new ideas last summer when they noticed that more manufacturers were getting into candy. “I planted a seed in my brain that we needed a first-to-market product,” Kramer said.
Nobody else was doing freeze-dried water ice, so they cold-called Cardullo.
Kramer and Cardullo, it turns out, have longstanding family ties. Kramer’s great-grandfather Nick Baggio Sr. and Cardullo’s grandfather John Cardullo were partners selling kerosene back in the horse-and-buggy days, Kramer said. Cardullo later went into oil and coal, and opened the water ice stand at Seventh and Christian Streets in 1945 as his summertime business. (Cardullo splits his year also; in John’s offseason, he manages at the Saloon, the landmark Italian restaurant up the street.)
Kramer, Sandelier, and Cardullo are equal partners in the new business, which is separate from both the stand and Sugar Crunch.
The new product required months of research and development in Sugar Crunch’s Lindenwold facility.
Typically, Kramer and Sandelier heat solid candies (such as Skittles, Nerds, and Jolly Ranchers) in a vacuum oven, drawing out the moisture and making it “pop” into an entirely different product. (There’s no freezing involved, though that is the popular term for the candy category.)
The new water ice candy is different because it starts with a liquid. “We go through our regular process, and then these guys are sucking the moisture out of it afterward,” Cardullo said. They have applied for a patent.
The candy is formed into pieces resembling packing peanuts, each 2 inches by three-quarters of an inch with a dome-like top. It’s sold in bags of 24 pieces for $10. Biting into one, you get a crispy texture and a blast of sweet flavor that melts in your mouth.
Removing the water makes the flavors “a little more intense,” Cardullo said. Both the cherry and lemon — the first two out of the gate — are spot-on. It may not be cold, but the aftertaste feels like a summer day.
Mango and pineapple are next, followed by chocolate.
The partners are selling bags at John’s before its seasonal shutdown on Sept. 28 and in the Sugar Crunch vending machine at Cherry Hill Mall. Online and wholesale are on the way.
Cardullo isn’t concerned about the new product competing with traditional water ice sales, at least in the summer. “When I get a 90-degree day, I’m still expecting my regular crowds,” he said.
Early feedback has been positive. “One woman told me, ‘I like it, but I only eat water ice in the summertime and it has to be cold,’” Sandelier said. “But others try it and say, ‘Now I want a water ice.’”
Dining and Cooking