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CANDY
INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - Category Close Up: Hard Candy
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Sugar-sweetened
hard candy resurgencies
Despite high U.S. sugar prices and lagging sales, niche markets
create unique avenues for hard candy manufacturers that show
ingenuity.
By Elizabeth Fuhrman
With
sugar prices in the United States ranging from four times and
above the international sugar price per pound, many hard candy
manufacturers have taken their production out of the country.
But, some hard candy manufacturers are taking a different approach
to this fiscal challenge and creating their own upscale hard
candy niche.
Nearly
10 years ago, J. Brooks West III, president of Nashville, N.C.-based
Butterfields, acquired the company, which was founded in 1924,
after gaining experience with flavorings. “It was amazing
how close to the fruit the hard candies were,” West says.
“What’s special about our candies is that we use
a formula similar to the way candy used to taste when we were
younger.”
West
feels what’s happened with many hard candies is that manufacturers
have tried to add more corn syrup than sugar because of cost
concerns. With corn syrup produced in the United States, it
costs about half the price of sugar. With Butterfields’
Peach Buds and other fruit-flavored hard candies and Peppermint
Bursts all hand-crafted, West didn’t really care how much
his ingredients cost, he said.
“Efficiency
is really a wonderful thing, but I think that when you’re
talking about quality you have to pay attention to the details,”
he explains. “What we do is use a traditional method that
emulates how candy was made a long time ago… If you have
more sugar in your product and you have more flavors, the whole
quality, the whole aroma and the whole essence is just better.”
Packaging
aids in the overall effect of a product, so Butterfields took
a look back with an eye on future sales. After a nine-month
survey conducted by the company to distributors and retailers,
which showed that retro and high quality and genuine product
seemed to be what people wanted, Butterfields decided to place
its Peach Buds in retro packaging. The old fashioned lineup
features a 12-oz. box or 8-oz. tin.
“We’re
not in the commodity business,” West says. “We’re
in a niche business where our consumers want the best that
they can get their mouths on.”
“…It
comes down to jobs and American craftsmanship, which is an
art form and it needs to be preserved,” he continues.
“We’re about excellence and making the best piece
of hard candy and carrying on that tradition. That tradition
fits very well into nostalgic packaging because it is a genuine
concept.”
With
sales up around 30%, West plans to expand his company’s
quality offerings with his recent purchase of Shaker Country
Meadowsweets from Hillside, N.J.-based Hillside Candy, the owners
of the brand Golightly. The Shaker Country Meadowseets brand,
known for its natural gourmet hard candy, fills another niche
by offering botanical herbal confections.
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