Going with the flow Molten master plan quickly bears fruit By: David Sanderson Posted: 2:00 AM CDT Saturday, Sep. 20, 2025

Slather it and they will come.

On Sept. 13 and 14, Melted, a four-month-old enterprise that dishes out strawberries smothered in warm melted chocolate and assorted toppings, set up shop at the Allery, on the second level of The Forks Market. Founder Marridel Cloma Tuazon wasn’t sure what the response would be like, given hers was the lone food vendor there, whereas all of her previous appearances had been at farmers’ markets or community centre sales, where dozens of other operators usually guaranteed a crowd.

Toss in the fact she and her husband Godfrey invested more than $2,000 on fresh strawberries two days beforehand — you don’t want to know what they dropped on premium chocolate, she says with a wink — and she was nervous, to say the least.

The mother of two needn’t have fretted. Lineups were long, and they ended up selling out early both days, a feat that left her shaking her head.

“Honestly, we never expected that many people to show up,” Cloma Tuazon says, seated in an Academy Road coffee shop the Monday morning after the two-day happening.

“Mind you, I do feel bad for all those who were still in line when we ran out. We really appreciated their patience and understanding and hopefully we’ll see them next time.”

 

London’s Borough Market landed in the news in the fall of 2023 when management prohibited one of its vendors from selling what had become a highly popular item.

For weeks, Turnips, a dealer at the central London locale, had been offering fresh strawberries covered with melted chocolate dispensed from a fountain-type apparatus. Turnips was ultimately told to shelve the eye-catching dessert, after those in charge said it didn’t meet the proper criteria, as it was “neither fruit, vegetable or related produce.”

Complaints flooded in immediately, so much so that the ban was lifted within days. That was just the beginning.

Thanks to the ensuing publicity, “the strawberries blew up even more,” a Turnips supervisor told a reporter. Thirty-second clips of staff pouring chocolate into plastic cups filled to the brim with bright red strawberries went viral on social media, generating millions of views. Practically overnight, Turnips became a destination point for travellers to the city, along with Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.

Cloma Tuazon, 30, was on maternity leave from her digital-marketing position in October 2024 when she first spotted a TikTok video with Turnips’ chocolate-covered strawberries in the starring role. The Asper School of Business alumnus was intrigued by the idea. In 2021 she briefly had a side gig selling strawberries hand-dipped in chocolate, the sort one keeps in the fridge.

Her mind shot back to the video this spring, when she learned her employer was shuttering and she wouldn’t have a job to return to when her leave ended in a few months’ time. By then, the Turnips sensation had spread around the globe. She researched spots such as Strawberro in New York City and Choco Faberries in Burbank, Calif., to determine what was involved, in case she decided to follow suit.

One night she approached her husband after dinner to say she was seriously considering launching a new venture. He said it sounded promising, but added they might want to take a week or two to really do their homework.

“Well, it wasn’t even 24 hours later when I told him I didn’t need to think about it any longer, and how I wanted to get going on the strawberry thing right away,” she says.

“No lie, within three weeks we had bought our chocolate-melting machinery, our setup tent and everything else we needed. We also spent hours and hours tasting different Belgian chocolate, until we found the ones that suited us best.” (She knows, she knows: it’s a tough job but somebody had to do it.)

Melted, a play on Melanie, the name of Cloma Tuazon’s 9-year-old daughter, made its official debut on May 24, at Taste of Asia at Memorial Park. She’s never been one for the limelight, she says, and she recalls her reaction during a trip to the grocery store earlier that week.

“Somebody asked what I was up to and I said I was throwing a party. I was still too shy to say I had my own business.”

“Back then I didn’t have a supplier like I do now, and I felt like all eyes were on me, as I filled my cart up with all these strawberries,” she says with a chuckle.

“Somebody asked what I was up to and I said I was throwing a party. I was still too shy to say I had my own business.”

Cloma Tuazon laughs again, recounting a lesson she learned at her grand opening. Because some passers-by were mistaking Melted for a grilled-cheese vendor situated elsewhere on-site, she invested in a strawberry-shaped neon light to properly convey what she was all about.

What started off with three flavours of confections — “classic,” “caramel-crunch” and “s’mores-berry” — is now up to eight, including cookies-and-cream and matcha. Cloma Tuazon, whose five industrial pots are each able to melt close to 10 litres of chocolate at a time, has also been collaborating with other Winnipeg entrepreneurs to create limited-edition offerings. Last weekend at The Forks, for example, she teamed with Jenna Rae Cakes by adding chunks of that company’s macarons to cups packed with strawberries and melted white chocolate.

“We probably have another 10 flavours that have yet to be released,” she continues, noting she inherited her kitchen skills from her mother, who taught her how to prepare Filipino favourites such as sinigang, a tamarind-based soup, and kare kare, a peanut-buttery stew containing oxtail and beef.

“The thing is, we’ve only been at it for four months, and we don’t want to move too quickly. Slow and steady is still the plan.”

When Chandra Kremski, founder of Third & Bird, Winnipeg’s largest urban market, heard chocolate-covered strawberries were suddenly all the rage in London, she told members of her team she couldn’t wait to see who was going to introduce the trend to Winnipeg. If anybody did, she said, they were going to “kill it.”

“So yeah, when Marridel told us what she was up to, my response was it was literally going to blow up, which it has,” says Kremski, who hosted Cloma Tuazon at a Third & Bird market in July, held at St. Norbert Farmers’ Market, and who will welcome her again at their annual Christmas affair in November.

Kremski feels Cloma Tuazon’s marketing savvy has been a key to her success. Not only is she heavily active on social media, her sweet treats practically sell themselves, owing to their packaging, Kremski says.

“These days, when you’re trying to promote your product you have to think beyond what you’re giving the customer. Sight, sound, smell, taste… it all adds up,” Kremski says.

“In today’s world, people are going to want to take pictures and post it on their social media, so for her to use something as simple as a clear cup is marketing genius. Somebody will be walking around a market, another person will stop them and say ‘hey, where did you get that?’ That just leads to more sales.”

As for what Cloma Tuazon is turning out, Kremski is a fan of that, too.

“It’s also been great to show my kids it’s possible to create something out of nothing.”

“You have the cold bite of the strawberry together with the sweetness of warm chocolate. C’mon, it doesn’t really get much better than that.”

Cloma Tuazon is currently booked every weekend until the end of November. She set up her booth — painted strawberry-red, natch — at a wedding reception a couple of weeks ago and has a couple of similar get-togethers in the pipeline.

“Staff Christmas parties, family gatherings, we’re open to pretty much anything,” she says.

Long lineups and sellouts are wonderful, she goes on, but her biggest reward, thus far, has little to do with her bottom line.

“Losing my job turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it allows me to be home more with the kids, and to balance my time better,” she says, noting she “definitely” teared up last weekend after reading a painted message from her daughter — “U can do it” — on the underside of her new counter.

“It’s also been great to show my kids it’s possible to create something out of nothing. Melanie’s old enough that she can help out now and again and she’s already figured out it’s OK to take a leap of faith, if what you’re doing is something you truly believe in.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca