Annual southern products competition is back for 16th year

By Mike Switzer

Published May 21, 2025 at 6:30 AM EDT

Caroline Clements — Caroline Sanders Clements, associate editor with Garden and Gun magazine in Charleston, S.C.

For the past 15 years, our next guest’s magazine has been hosting an awards program for products made in the South. Now in their 16th year, you may want to know that nominations are ending soon. Mike Switzer interviews Caroline Sanders Clements, associate editor with Garden and Gun magazine in Charleston, S.C.

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Mike Switzer

After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.

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