Candy Mecca

Dubai is home to the world's tallest building (Burj Dubai Tower), which overlooks the world’s biggest fountain. It's also got the world's largest shopping mall with an underwater zoo and another one with an indoor ski slope. So is it any wonder that the land of bigger-is-better is now home to the world’s largest candy store?

Called Candylicious, the 10,000 square-foot shop opened Wednesday in The Dubai Mall. The world's largest title, for the record, is based on sweets per square foot and not the store's overall square footage – Daffin's candy store in Pennsylvania technically is a larger shop (it’s 14,000 square feet.)

"When there is a recession, the confectionery business booms because confectionery is an affordable treat," Sunaina Gill, operations director for the brand, told the United Arab Emirates’ The National newspaper. "It’s a feel happy kind of treat. And people can go from buying very expensive gift items, to very affordable items."

The shop stocks some 3,000 treats from around the world, including toasted popcorn flavored jelly beans, gourmet Garrett popcorn (Gill claims this is Oprah Winfrey’s favorite brand), and the old-style soda fountain staple: root beer and ice cream. Candylicious also features a 10-meter-tall singing chocolate tree decorated with lollipops.

And if you’re in the mall and can’t face what is presumably a long trek, you can get your sugar rush with "Candylicious Junior," a car that will circle the mall selling sweets.

"There’s nothing like this in Dubai," Gill told The National. "The candy that we carry in our store, we can safely say that close to 80 per cent is not found in this market at all."

Sweet!

Photo courtesy Michele Cat via Flickr.