Sugar Plum, Inc. was founded and incorporated in 1985 in Virginia Beach, VA as a not-for-profit organization following a demonstration grant award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Developmental Disabilities. To receive this grant award (200 awarded out of 2200 applications) a market and investment feasibility study was undertaken to satisfy the retail/commercial need for a bakery business in this particular location and community. Many business ideas were considered, but the bakery idea not only met the criteria for a market need, it also provided various skill levels and employment opportunities in a business which would produce everything it sold every single day. Following notification by the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington that Sugar Plum was in line for one of the grants, hands-on managerial training began at the Ukrops Bakery Production Center in Richmond. The initial Board of Directors as well as an Advisory Board of various agencies working in education and services for persons with disabilities began laying the framework for Sugar Plum, Inc.