EASTHAMPTON — Easthampton-based Crooked Stick Pops, a woman-owned business founded in 2016, has been awarded a grant for $40,521.82 by MassDevelopment’s Biz-M-Power Grant Program. The grant supports an expansion of the company’s commercial kitchen to some three times its current size through capital investments in equipment.
Increased production will help the company expand its wholesale reach from the Hudson Valley to Metro West Boston and Cape Cod. The company will focus on developing existing markets in Southern New England and increasing its presence from Boston to the Albany Capital Region.
“As we celebrate our 10th year in business, we’re putting down deeper roots in Easthampton, which has been so supportive from the beginning,” said Julie Tuman, founder of Crooked Stick Pops. “When we moved into our first space, it seemed like a huge empty room, comically large for my little ice pop company. We grew so fast in the years after COVID, my biggest challenge has become juggling space in our walk-in freezer, and even just making room for all our equipment in that same room that seemed so dauntingly large in 2016.”
The new kitchen space will hold a second, larger walk-in freezer, the equipment investment made possible by the MassDevelopment grant. The new kitchen space will also allow for more efficient venting of popsicle machines and the large freezers, which generate a great deal of heat — doubly ironic for a company that makes frozen treats and does most of its work during the already hot and humid summer months.
The business remains based in the Keystone Building of Easthampton, but now on a ground floor location that allows for more efficient loading of vehicles headed to farmers’ markets, music festivals, civic gatherings, weddings and parties, and all the other events Crooked Stick Pops is known for. It will also help Marty’s Local, wholesale distributor since 2023, load its trucks without dealing with freight elevators and competing for loading dock space.
“Any expansion of this magnitude would make me a little nervous, but this grant from MassDevelopment helps give me the confidence that we’ll succeed,” Tuman said. “We are so grateful to our always supportive community, and there’s good reason to think we’ll keep on growing. This generous award from MassDevelopment takes the edge off and lets me stay focused on what we do best, which is making pops that I can be proud of, and then getting them out to the people.”
For more about Crooked Stick Pops, including a calendar of 2026 events and a map showing where to find retail pops, visit crookedstickpops.com.
