ROBBINSTON — Food stamps, her mother’s recipes and Yankee determination all helped a mother of two turn her kitchen enterprise into a high-quality candy company doing business with L.L. Bean and other big distributors.

Last week, Lea Sullivan, who stumbled into the candy-making business in 1982 when she founded Katie’s Chocolates, was named the outstanding woman business owner of the year by the Women’s Business Development Corp. in Bangor.

“She started her business on a shoestring and grew her business from her kitchen into a real manufacturing facility,” said Roberta Laverty, regional program manager for the development corporation.

In 1982, there was a nationwide recession. A number of Washington County businesses went bankrupt or closed. Lea’s husband, Joseph, who owned a carpet business, felt the crunch. The couple had two children at home — Katie, 5, and Matt, 3. The family had to go on food stamps to make ends meet.

Sullivan knew she had to find a way to augment the family income, and with young children, she wanted something she could do at home. She thought she might try cake decorating, but that didn’t seem to go anywhere.

A fluke led her into the candy business. A cousin who worked at the Georgia-Pacific pulp and paper mill in Woodland chatted with co-workers about the high-quality candy that once was made by local candy companies. They started talking about honey sticks, and Sullivan’s cousin, Dianne Jundt, told the women she thought Lea could make them because of her skill at decorating cakes.

“My cousin Dianne called me and said she had some orders for honey sticks. I thought, `I’ve never made a honey stick in my life.’ I said, `I don’t know.’ She said, `OK, I’ll tell them you’re not interested.’ She called me back a couple of nights later and had more orders. I said, `Well I’ll make the foolish things just to get you off my back,”‘ Sullivan said.

Ginny Walker, Sullivan’s mother, had over the years collected recipes from the area’s former candy companies, and she had a recipe for honey sticks. Sullivan made the candy and earned $100.

After that, Sullivan added more varieties including a full line of chocolates, caramels, truffles, fudge, and Maine potato candy which is made by combining mashed potatoes, confectioners’ sugar and coconut. These ingredients are chilled and chocolate is poured over the concoction.

The business expanded from her kitchen into an area added onto the family home. Later a bright yellow building with large multicolored flowers on it was added to the property. It now serves as a store.

Reminiscing, Sullivan shakes her head and laughs over what she and her husband did to keep the business going. For example, she said, there was no air conditioning in the store so she had to keep the candy in an old refrigerator.

“When I had a customer, I’d get it [the candy] all out and put it on the shelf. When the customers made their choice and left, I would put it all back in the refrigerator,” she said.

Sullivan named the company after her daughter. “When she was little we used to sing `K-K-K-Katie, beautiful Katie’ to her. I thought it was catchy. If you came in the shop and sang K-K-K-Katie you got a free chocolate. We did that for 10 years until we couldn’t stand hearing it. You’d be amazed how many renditions we heard,” she said.

Early in her business career Sullivan went to talk with noted candy maker Ella Lowther, who once owned a candy company on Monroe Street in Calais. Lowther was in her 90s at the time.

“I was told, `Don’t ask her for a recipe unless you want your head bit off,”‘ she said. “So I gathered up my courage and went to talk to her. She was wonderful. I think she was happy to see someone who was so interested in what she had done.” Lowther ended up giving Sullivan her recipes.

Sullivan said she embraced Lowther’s philosophy of never providing anything but a high-quality product. “She said never ever buy an inferior ingredient to save a buck. Buy the best you can afford, charge what you have to for it, and people who want quality will buy it.”

It was that philosophy that brought Sullivan to the attention of L.L. Bean.

She and her husband had attended the Northern New England Products Trade Show for about three years, and each time L.L. Bean representatives stopped at her booth to compliment her, but evinced no other interest.

“You could tell when L.L. Bean representatives were coming, because all heads turn in the crowd. People would fall on their knees practically, and I was one of them at the first show. I was as bad as everybody else,” she said with a laugh.

On April 7, 1995, Sullivan received a thick envelope from L.L. Bean. “It was an order for 3,000 boxes of Maine Potato Candy to be delivered in one month,” she said.

Panic set in, and Sullivan said she cried and hyperventilated because she did not know how she could produce that much product in such a short time. Her husband told her to call the company to tell them she needed more time.

Sullivan said L.L. Bean representatives were understanding, and they have had a business relationship ever since. She said the company sells other lines of her product at its store in Freeport.

Since they started, the Sullivans have produced nearly 9,000 pounds of candy.

With classical music playing in the background, the couple were in the kitchen one morning last week making candy and getting ready for yet another trade show. They do everything — from boxing to sealing the candy in cellophane.

Katie’s Chocolate is carried by a variety of stores, including Hannaford Brothers in their gourmet Maine specialty food aisle at Shop ‘n Save stores in Augusta, Rockland, Belfast, Boothbay, Millinocket and Yarmouth.