Meet Katie & Eric Roering

How did your business get started?

Fontana started after my husband, Eric Roering, and I were gifted a name-brand candle made with synthetic fragrance and paraffin wax in 2017. We rarely burned candles in our home, but while baking Christmas cookies one night, we decided to light it.

It wasn’t long before we both developed headaches and an overall sense of discomfort. When we thought about what had changed in our environment, the candle was the only thing we could point to. That experience sent Eric down a deep dive into candle ingredients, and we were surprised by what we learned, especially the lack of transparency and regulation surrounding ingredients in the candle and fragrance industries.

Because health and wellness were already such an important part of our lifestyle, creating a cleaner alternative felt like a natural next step. We began making our own candles in our basement using simple, thoughtfully chosen ingredients, eventually developing the beeswax and coconut oil wax blend we still use today.

After one successful day selling our candles at a local maker’s market, we realized we had created something people were looking for. That was the beginning of Fontana!

Why Lancaster County?

Lancaster County has always been home for me. I was born and raised here, and I loved growing up in this community, so when we started Fontana, building the company here felt natural.

As Fontana grew, we actually had conversations about whether another location might make more sense for the business. One of our board members encouraged us to consider moving west to an area with a larger health and wellness community. But by that point, we had already built a strong leadership team and a dedicated team. We weren’t willing to leave those people behind.

Lancaster County has given us the opportunity to grow while staying connected to the community where our story began. There’s a strong work ethic here, talented people, and a sense of community that has made it a great place to build and continue growing Fontana!

What makes your business unique?

What really sets Fontana apart is our commitment to ingredient transparency. From the beginning, we’ve believed that customers deserve to know exactly what they’re bringing into their homes, which is why we list every ingredient we use right on our labels. We’ve also taken that commitment a step further through third-party certifications like MADE SAFE, giving our customers an additional level of confidence in the products we make.

We’re also proud that we do everything in-house. From developing and producing our candles to shipping orders, creating content, and building the brand, our team is incredibly hands-on with every part of Fontana!

And we’ve never wanted Fontana to feel like a traditional candle company. We have fun with our social media, bring our customers behind the scenes, share the realities of growing a business, and aren’t afraid to show some personality. We want people to trust what’s in our products, but we also want them to enjoy being part of the Fontana community!

What has been one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned as a small business owner?

One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is that you have to have a passion for business itself, not just for the product your business creates.

Eric and I have never considered ourselves candle artisans. We care deeply about the quality of our candles and the ingredients that go into them, but as Fontana grew, our focus became building the business around the product. We spent our days thinking about our team, operations, marketing, retail, customer experience, and what it would take to reach the next stage of growth.

We’ve seen incredibly talented makers create amazing products but struggle to grow because so much of their time and energy remains focused on making the product itself. Our ability to step away from being the candle makers and become business owners is a big part of what allowed Fontana to grow as quickly as it did. You need a product you believe in, but you also have to love the challenge of building the company behind it.

What does success look like for your business?

In many ways, we feel like we’re already there! Fontana has been recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America for two years in a row, we’ve continued to expand our team and operations, and we’re serving more customers than ever before.

Success for us now is about what we can do with that growth. We’re focused on streamlining our operations so we can make Fontana products more accessible to more people. As we continue to scale, our hope is that we can also bring our prices down without compromising the ingredients, transparency, and standards that built the company!

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting their own business?

Understand what you ultimately want from the business. Are you looking to turn something you love into a small business, or do you want to build something that can grow, scale, and eventually become much bigger than you? There is no wrong answer, but knowing your end goal can help guide the decisions you make from the very beginning.

We also believe you have to develop a passion for business itself, not just for whatever you’re selling. As your company grows, you may spend less time actually making the product and more time leading people, solving problems, managing operations, marketing, and planning for what’s next.

What’s next for your business?

There’s a lot we’re excited about! One of our biggest goals is to bring Fontana into major retail, making our products easier for people to find and experience in person. We’re also constantly thinking about what’s next creatively, from new vessels and collections to partnerships with brands who share our values.

More than anything, we want to keep growing without losing what made Fontana special in the first place. We want to create products that people are genuinely excited about, and continue pushing for greater ingredient transparency in an industry that still has a long way to go.

Learn More

Visit their website to learn more about Fontana Candles. Read more about Lancaster’s small business community in our latest publication, Small Business Success— A resource magazine for small business owners and entreprenuers throughout Lancaster County!

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