NEW HAMPTON, Iowa — Milkhouse Candle Creamery products not only provide a flame and a favorite scent, they clean the air as they burn.
Janet and Eric Sparrow made their first candles for their outdoor wedding in 2002.
Candle making continued as a hobby, with the couple buying canning jars at auctions and trying their creations on family and friends. Their first candles were paraffin, but they soon switched to soy oil, a much healthier alternative.
Fast forward to 2015, the Sparrows' Milkhouse Candle Creamery sells candles at 2,000 locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan, a little island off the coast of Africa and, soon, South Korea.
Eric, a third-grade teacher, and Janet, an occupational therapist, both work full time for the company. They __have two young sons, Carsen, 9, and Hudson, 6.
Eric is from Osage, and Janet grew up on a dairy farm near Northwood. The farm provided inspiration for the business name.
The company has a manufacturing facility in Osage and in the past year also began making candles in New Hampton in the former Soy Basics factory. The Sparrows bought the equipment at an auction and lease the building.
The new facility has all the latest candle-making technology. Robotic arms place and glue wick assemblies into jars. Hot wax is pumped into jars and then the candles move through a cooling tunnel. Employees trim the wicks and move the candles on for labeling.
The Sparrows are excited about the opportunities the New Hampton plant offers for expansion. They use just a portion of the building and equipment.
No artificial colors nor lead is used in the wicks. They blend pure beeswax with hydrogenated oil that comes from soybeans grown in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.
"Soybeans are harvested and sold to the elevator," Eric said. "When soybeans are crushed, that's where the oil comes from. We get 11 pounds of soy oil from a 60-pound bushel of soybeans. Hydrogen atoms are added to the soy oil component to give it the optimum melting temperature. What we buy is a food grade product. Through the technology we __have here, we're able to make a good candle out of that hydrogenated soybean oil."
Eric explained the world is full of positively charged ions that carry dust, germs and a lot of negative things that can be health hazards. Bees wax is nature's only ingredient that, by burning, emits negative ions.
"The negative ions attach to the positive ions creating a neutral atom that drops to the ground," Eric said. "By burning bees wax and vacuuming twice a week, the air is actually cleaner in your home. Clean-burning soy and the benefits of bees wax, it's such a great alternative to paraffin-based candles. There are 11 carcinogens in paraffin wax, the same as diesel exhaust."
Milk bottle candles are the most popular, followed by 16- and 22-ounce butter jars. The culinary crock collection comes in round and loaf crocks. Eric's mother, Diane Sparrow, an award-winning cook and baker, creates recipes, such as apple strudel, autumn pear bread and heirloom tomato and watermelon salsa, customers can prepare in the crocks when the candles are finished burning.
"We encourage reusability," Janet said. "The crocks are microwave oven and dishwasher safe."
Eric and Janet rely on fragrance manufacturers to tell them the latest trends in candle scents. They test samples, get people's opinions, and Eric's mother, as recipe maker, plays a big role.
Evoking memories of places or events, the scents range from the outdoorsy buds and berries to the botanical eucalyptus and lavender, to the rugged barn dance and cabin fever to the floral lilac and southern jasmine to the culinary sticky buns, lemon cheesecake and apple strudel. There are smells of the holidays, such as fireside and Victorian Christmas.
They also sell fragrance melts and diffusers.
The business has 30 employees, 11 in New Hampton. Eric's brother, Nick, who worked as a school technology coordinator, is the company's systems builder. After they bought the New Hampton equipment, Nick spent five months programming everything.
"We are so blessed to have Nick," Janet said.
The Sparrows run their business based on core values – doing the right thing, practicing open and honest communication, facing challenges with optimism, hanging egos at the door, innovating and constantly improving, making a difference, believing in people and their dreams, working as a team and having fun.
"We use our core values to hire and train," Janet said. "It's what we live and breathe. It makes us who we are. We believe in all our people."
The Sparrows contract candle filling and also started American Soy Organics, which sells soy wax to other manufacturers as well as fragrance, wicks and jars. They also offer soy candle making expertise.
"We specialize only in soy," Eric said.
To purchase Milkhouse Candles, the Sparrows recommend people go to the zip code locator on their website at milkhousecandles.com to find retail locations near them. People also can buy online, but prices are higher.
Milkhouse Candle Creamery was honored by the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation with a Renew Rural Iowa Leader Award. At its annual appreciation reception, the New Hampton Industrial Development Corporation honored Milkhouse as a new business to the community.