SWEET sensation By Andrea Louise Thomas Photos Yanni
L
olly shop purveyor Glenn William Bourke at Packing House Sweets in Tyabb reminds us why we love sweets. He doesn’t just stock products, he curates confections and creates gorgeous displays that delight the senses. This is no run-of-the-mill sweet shop. Glenn searches the world over to find the most mouth-watering treats. His criteria is simple: quality, purity and value. He doesn’t stock anything with GMOs or toxic ingredients, just good clean sweets in an ever-evolving variety. Glenn’s own sweet spot is gummy snakes. “I love the smell when opening a fresh bag of snakes. It reminds me of walking into the milk bar to buy lollies when I was little,” he says. He loves the history of classic sweets like bananas, teeth and milk bottles. They elicit memories of the old-fashioned milk bar. He wants to create that childhood fantasyland of the oldfashioned milk bar or lolly shop experience with jars of colourful sweets and a friendly face behind the counter. One of his favourite things, beyond flavour, is beautiful packaging. He loves the artistry of European lolly shops with sweets in beautiful tins. He has plenty of those in his shop. Glenn never expected to own a lolly shop, but the most consistent thread in his life is his capacity for reinvention. When he was young, Glenn wanted to be an artist. He was always drawing and painting and had a keen interest in art history. During Years 11 and 12 he also went to night school at TAFE to study curation and arts. For university Glenn was diverted to a horticulture scholarship and dutifully completed a four-year degree at Albury/Wodonga Horticultural College. It was is the food industry where Glenn got his first job at Simply French in Toorak Road. He then became personal assistant and shop manager at Phillipa’s in Armadale where he created marvellous visual merchandising among other duties. It was voted Melbourne’s Best Bakery. He moved on to Spoonful in Prahran which rocketed to success with its daily rotation of fabulous food. Meanwhile, he was still doing professional gardening. continued next page...
March 2026 PENINSULA essence | 41