• Courtesy
• From left: Casey Fisk, Gavyn Legrand, Willamyna Fisk, Aydin Legrand and Bryant Fisk

Freeze-dried foods are wildly popular on social media and among backpackers, astronauts and doomsday preppers. Now, Essex Junction has a new storefront dedicated to the crunchy novelties: Dried N' True Sweets & Treats.

The small shop, which opened in early April in the front of Studio Fisk Aveda salon at 14 Park Street, sells a wide variety of freeze-dried candy and local and organic fruits and vegetables.

Casey Fisk and her family started freeze-drying produce from their 900-square-foot garden in 2020 as a pandemic project. They gave the results away, and soon people were asking to buy their freeze-dried treats.

"Our plan was to do this as a family, not so much to sell stuff," Fisk said. "Then it just became more."

They launched an online shop, and Fisk, 42, started offering the treats at her Park Street salon. This spring, she turned an unused front part of the salon into the retail space, which she believes is the first brick-and-mortar freeze-dried store in Vermont.

Fisk works full time in the salon, so hours are limited to when her husband, Bryant Fisk, and her children, Aydin Legrand, Gavyn Legrand and Willamyna Fisk, can run the shop.

The freeze-drying process removes moisture — and creates its signature crunch — by converting a substance's water content directly from ice to vapor. When stored correctly, freeze-dried food has a shelf life of up to 25 years, though Dried N' True's products, sold in deli containers to protect them from crushing, are not recommended for long-term storage.

"You can freeze-dry almost anything," Fisk said. "The flavor is intensified, especially berries. And you don't lose any of the nutrients."

Freeze-dried treats also morph into unexpected shapes and textures: Gummy worms "get really huge," Fisk said, and Jolly Rancher hard candies change into "gigantic balls of fluff."

Dried N' True offers samples of its products, including the top-selling Skittles, Werther's Original caramels and Jell-O.