“He’s just always been infatuated with cake pops,” Coley said of Maxwell. “It was something that he could put together at any age and be a fun activity that was easy.”

The Crumb Pops storefront opened in November 2023 and shares a building with a salon in Duncansville. With a team of about 10 people, ranging from full-time bakers to family who help out, the store started out by selling about 25 different cake pop flavors that customers would order on a kiosk. Coley said customers would “make up a box” of what flavors they wanted “like at Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Some of their original flavors include butterfinger, key lime pie, bananas foster and thin mint, Coley said.

This isn’t Coley’s first foray into the food business, as she and her ex-husband previously owned a restaurant together. Coley said she was also on the Food Network about 10 years ago and then sold “scrumptious gourmet rum cakes” on QVC.

Crumb Pops owner Joyelle Coley will be selling cake pop kits on Good Morning America’s Deals and Steals segment on Wednesday, Dec. 11. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

“I loved it, it was wonderful,” Coley said. “Then life got in the way.”

When she got back into the food business, Coley chose to focus on cake pops the second time around.

“I wanted to do this in a different form,” Coley said. “I wanted something that wasn’t seasonal, that everyone could enjoy, that was versatile.”

Crumb Pops has always sold the customer selected boxes of cake pops out of its brick-and-mortar location, but its cake pop kits, which will be featured on Good Morning America’s Deals and Steals segment at 1:30 p.m. today, were introduced a few months ago.

“(Maxwell) loved (making cake pops),” Coley said. “It was a fun idea, plus we wanted to be able to ship them. We didn’t have that ability before because our cake pops would crack and they would melt, but this way, we could ship them unassembled.”

A finished snowman cake pop kit is seen at Crumb Pops in Duncansville. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

The cake pop kits have everything included, such as cake balls that have already been baked, chocolate coating and sprinkles. Coley said they took their bestselling cake pop themes and created kits out of them.

“There are gender reveal cake pops where the sprinkle packet is blue or pink but you don’t know until you open them and sprinkle it on,” Coley said. “There are engagement-themed ones with candy wedding rings. They’re for any event in life, so to speak.”

While Coley is happy with Crumb Pops’ “little small town storefront where we’re only open a couple days a week,” she said “that doesn’t do it for us.”

“We wanted to do more,” Coley said. “When we reached out and got picked up by Good Morning America to do the Deals and Steals segment, that was great. We thought ‘great, we’re going to be exposed on the national level.'”

To get on a show like Good Morning America, Coley said she “had to give them a pitch” and it was “very similar to having to sell something through QVC or Shark Tank.” She heard back within a month or two, she said.

“It was very exciting,” Coley said. “I was feeling probably two things: excitement and a little bit of nervousness came into play because this is what I wanted, but now I have to gear up for it and there’s a lot to prepare for.”

The preparation began in October, right after Coley found out the cake pop kits would be on the show, and they have since prepared thousands of units. Coley said Good Morning America will have a limited supply for customers to buy at a discount for 48 hours after the segment’s airing.

“They’re not only being sold through (Good Morning America) but on our own site as well,” Coley said, adding that Crumb Pops has a pick-up option, extended holiday hours and an extended inventory.

Coley hopes to feed off the success of Crumb Pops’ cake pop kits and utilize the store’s full commercial bakery, which comes with a machine that “cuts and rolls (cake) into cake balls,” making “thousands of cake pops an hour.”

“I had an idea for this company, I created it and opened it,” Coley said. “My whole thought process was ‘I want us to go nationwide. I want us to be able to go big and be prepared.'”

Coley has found a niche for herself in the market, as there aren’t any other no-bake cake pop kits out there.

“It took that process completely out of it but allowed people to still be creative,” Coley said.

The vision couldn’t have “come to fruition” without the encouragement and support of Coley’s family, as well as “the hard work that everyone has put in.”

“I’m proud of my employees,” Coley said. “There’s no better word for this than excitement, especially for an entrepreneur.”

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.