The company 240sweet evolved from a partnership that spawned at a company called Lemley’s Catering. Alexa Lemley, as you can tell from the last name, had a personal link to the catering company. Lemley’s Catering was owned by her father, and with access to his equipment, she was able to start her venture, 240sweet. She did so with the help of Samantha Aulick. The pair met while they both worked at Lemley’s Catering. They got along as well as could be. The partnership that began as a close friendship between employees eventually led to a marriage between the two a few years after initially meeting.
Samantha and Alexa worked on a project together to attempt to drum up business for the catering company. In their efforts, they tried making some gourmet marshmallows to see if that might create some new business. People were so impressed with the gourmet treats and they became so popular that Samantha and Alexa felt there might be a business in it. So, that’s where it began. And while things were good for a while, at least good enough to maintain the business, things did not stay that way. The company finds itself in a pretty rough predicament. That is where Marcus Lemonis comes in.
240sweet on The Profit
The Profit Season 3 Episode 19
240sweet is based in Columbus, Indiana. Marcus had an initial idea of what he expected to see; 240sweet had been featured in magazines and on TV shows, so what he expected was a fairly well-running business. Certainly, it would be far from perfect, or else they would’ve never reached out to him for help, but he still expected something established. What Marcus finds when he arrives is a jumbled mess of a company. There is no separation between the retail area and the shipping area. You wouldn’t want any business operating under these types of conditions.
One of the first things Marcus notices is the smell of the facility and the products. The marshmallows don’t smell exactly like they’re supposed to. Even more, the facility doesn’t smell like you would expect it to. It is then revealed to Marcus that the couple shares the facility with Max, Alexa’s father. His company produces different spices. The result is that 240sweet is not producing the kind of quality products that they could be producing if they had their own place.
At this point, Marcus meets with Max for a bit to get a better idea of what he does on his end. He makes different spices and sauces and his business is rather successful. However, even though both he and his daughter use the same facility, only his daughter pays rent on the building. Upon hearing about this situation, Marcus has a better understanding of why the two women are struggling to grow the business. However, it is also a red flag as far as Marcus is concerned. It seems that the problems with this business are mostly family and relationship-based. Marcus would prefer to help with technical and operational problems a business is having rather than to be a family therapist.
So, he looks into their operations to see if there might be some easy changes to make that could benefit the company a lot. There are a lot of inefficiencies that are visible immediately. Most notably, Marcus realizes that their production time can be cut down significantly if they got some new equipment. This would mean far more product to sell.
Despite all of the issues, Marcus is still interested in working with these short-haired women. He realizes that the main problem is with Max; he is taking advantage of his daughter and daughter-in-law, it would appear. If that situation can be rectified, there is definite potential for this company to grow. Alexa is a talented chef. But the Max problem is a bit bigger than the pair even alluded to at first. It turns out that Max took out a loan to start a new business venture. The women are paying it off for him. It is unclear why this is going on, when Marcus presses Samantha she says that, as far as she can tell, the only reason they are paying that loan off is that Alexa says so. Marcus can empathize with Alexa’s desire to help her family, but he explains to her that there is no hope for the business if they continue to lose money on things like this.
Marcus does not have nearly the same excitement to invest as before he got there, but he’s still willing to consider it. There are dramatic moments throughout the episode in which it sometimes seems that the business owners are enjoying it. Mostly this can be seen through Sam’s behavior. There is a somewhat uncomfortable scene where Marcus mentions something that Sam says she was unaware of. Immediately, Marcus does a minimal investigation to find that she had indeed been aware of it. When he points out that she lied, she claims that she did not understand the question. It was a very simple question, so Marcus doesn’t believe her. He tells her so, and then she makes a dramatic short speech about how she’s the type of person who wakes up every day trying to make the world a better place.
In the end, Marcus offers them $100k for 51% of the business. The two women accept, but with one caveat: that Marcus gives 5% to their accountant Dede. Marcus agrees, and so it’s a deal.
Life After The Profit
240sweet is no longer a company. The deal which had been agreed upon never ended up working out. Marcus claims that the $100k he invested was lost, but that a lawsuit would be an even bigger waste of money. The fans of The Profit let 240sweet know loud and clear how they felt about the company. They were bombarded with poor reviews which hurt the company.
Their website is no longer active and the Facebook page shut down years ago. It appears now that the couple has a new business venture called KetoLuxe. Quite a different business than one selling marshmallows. It is hard to tell, but it seems like since this business is closer to what Max does, they might even be working on it together. There is not much info available but it seems like the couple is doing a lot better this time around.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is strictly informational; Seo Insights is not affiliated with 240Sweet, The Profit, or any of its subsidiaries.