Ten years ago, my husband Michael and I started Fluffy Crunch with nothing but a big idea, a lot of heart, and zero certainty it would work. That was 2016.
We built this business together, idea by idea, show by show, year by year.
And every April, the Sydney Royal Easter Show became our proving ground. It was here in 2018 where we launched the Flurrito®, our fairy floss ice cream burrito, and watched people stop mid-step, pull out their phones, and just stare. That moment told us something. It told us that fairy floss could do more than sit in a tub. It could become a memory.
Seven years of showing up (would be 8, but missed 2020) to that show. Seven years of setting up before sunrise, serving thousands of smiling faces, and going home exhausted and grateful. This year marks our eighth Easter Show, and our eleventh year in business.
And this year, we are arriving with something we have never done before.
First Fluroll made the day we entered our application to the Winning Bite
I am going to be honest with you. When the invitation to apply for the Winning Bite program arrived in my inbox, I almost deleted it. (sorry Paul)
Not literally. But I read it. And then I closed it. And then I read it again the next day. And the day after that. I had so much on my plate that week, and I know myself well enough to know that I do not do things halfway. For me it is all in, or not at all. And all in felt like a lot in those days.
Four days before the deadline, I was having dinner with my daughter Marielena and my mum. We were having pho. I had my chopsticks in my hand, and for some reason my brain just started connecting things.
I thought about the sushi rolls.
Years ago, Michael and I had talked about the idea of fairy floss sushi rolls. It was one of those kitchen table conversations where you throw an idea out and you both get excited for a moment, and then life happens. Lockdown happened. His cancer happened. His passing happened.
The idea never went anywhere.
But sitting there with my pho going cold, I thought: what if I finally make it? What if I make it now, with Marielena sitting across from me, in the business that Michael helped build, in the year we are finally turning things around?
So I decided to apply.
The application required something unique. Something that would make people stop and question what they were looking at. Something with the potential to go viral.
Rainbow fairy floss rolled into a sushi shape, with ice cream. That was the start. But I needed the element that would make people raise an eyebrow. The controversial ingredient.
I called in my mum and Diana, one of my team members and production superstars. Diana is also from Colombia, like me, and when I explained what I was trying to do, she did not hesitate for a second.
I looked at her like she had lost her mind.
She laughed and reminded me of something I had honestly forgotten. In Colombia, cheese and ice cream together is a tradition. "Queso campesino" with dessert. It is more common than you would think in certain regions, even if it was not something I grew up eating that way.
My immediate reaction was no. Then I started thinking about the story it would tell.
I researched what cheese would work best in Australia. Google pointed me to Feta. And then it clicked on a whole other level.
Feta is a Greek tradition. Michael's family is Greek. I am Colombian. This product, born from a conversation that started years ago with him, now carried both of our heritages inside it.
That was the moment I knew we had something.
There was no time to overthink it. The application was due soon, so the same day I made the decision to apply, we made the FLUROLLS™for the first time.
Mum, Diana, and I rolled up our sleeves. We figured out how to roll the rainbow fairy floss so the colours still showed through after cutting. We experimented with the amount of feta. The first attempt I was too cautious, too worried it would be revolting, so I barely added any. It was fine but not exciting.
Yes. That was the moment. Suddenly it worked. That sweet, fluffy, colourful fairy floss with the creamy, slightly salty feta underneath it was genuinely surprising in the best way. It did not taste like it should work. And then it absolutely did.
I took photos that day just to submit the application. They turned out perfect.
We submitted. We waited.
Fluffy Crunch was chosen as one of ten businesses selected for PR support for a new product launch at the Sydney Royal Easter Show through the Winning Bite program. The Show hosts hundreds of food businesses. Being chosen out of the ones that applied felt enormous.
On the day of the PR event, influencers and media came through our stand. Not everyone stopped. A few walked past probably thinking it was just another version of something they had seen before.
But the ones who stopped and tried it? They came back.
Every single one of them said they did not expect it to work. And that it absolutely did.
That reaction, right there, is everything.
SOME INFLUENCERS MEDIA FLUROLLS
WINNING BITE INFLUENCERS REVIEW
URBANLISTSYD we were their FAVOURITE
I want to say something here, because this blog would not be complete without it.
Michael is not here to see this. He passed away in June 2023 after three years fighting one of the rarest cancers you can imagine. Losing him was, and continues to be, the hardest thing our family has ever faced.
But I cannot take full ownership of FLUROLLS. The seed of this idea was planted in one of those conversations we had together, years before any of this was possible to execute. Life got in the way. And then he was gone.
The best way I know how to honour him is not to be sad. He did not want that for us. He wanted us happy. Thriving. Moving forward. So this year, with his daughter by my side, I am doing exactly that.
We are in our eleventh year. We are still here. And FLUROLLS are proof of what happens when you refuse to let go of an idea, even when the world gives you every reason to.
The Sydney Royal Easter Show runs from 2 to 13 April 2026.
We will be inside the HALL 2, HOME & LIFESTYLE PAVILION, right next to the Woolworths Fresh Food Dome.
FLUROLLS, will be there, ready for you to try, photograph, and be pleasantly confused by.
The FLURRITO and 20 different flavours of our Fairy Floss tubswill also be there, we are in the same corner we have been for the last few years.
We cannot wait to see your face when you take that first bite.
And if you cannot make it to the Show, our full award-winning fairy floss range is available online, delivered anywhere in Australia.
With love and a little bit of feta, Paola, Lena, Mum, and the whole Fluffy Crunch family
