local flavor
The Unexpected Story Behind
Tummy-Yum Yum’s Gourmet Candy Apples By Mia Brabham
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Photos courtesy Tummy-Yum Yum
harita Rouse was sitting at her desk one day and told her coworker Katie that she needed to find something else to do.
“I heard God speak to me clearly and say ‘Make candy apples,’” she said. Rouse had never made a candy apple before in her life. “I started laughing because I was like, ‘Okay, this really must be God, because I can’t make candy apples.” As a person of faith, she felt that if God told her to do something and she did it, she would be successful. That night she went home, talked to her husband about it, and made a Facebook post saying “Coming Fall 2017, Tummy-Yum Yum Gourmet Candy Apples.” “God gave me the name and everything,” Rouse said. The next morning, she woke up to eight orders. She went to the grocery store to get the materials and stayed up until 2 a.m. learning how to make these candy apple confections on YouTube. “I burned bowls, my stove caught on fire,” Rouse laughed. “It was terrible!” She made a few apples every day until she perfected her craft. “That’s how Tummy-Yum Yum was born — in my home with 253 dollars,” Rouse said. She and her husband turned their kitchen and sunroom into a manufacturing area, and Rouse began making anywhere between 800 to 1,000 apples a month. “I couldn’t believe my hand crafted those apples,” she said.
How the Business Grew Rouse began getting more and more orders. Her business was
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May 2021 prince william living
Sharita Rouse with Aaron Tolsen, CEO at Northern Virginia Food Rescue
only a hobby at this point, but she had a nagging feeling that she needed to leave her full-time oral surgery job after a tragic loss occurred at the company. “The Lord spoke to me and said ‘The longer you stay here, the worse it’s going to get.’ But I was loyal to my boss,” she said.
