48th Industry

The trouble with the candy industry is that anyone can go into business with a few pounds of sugar and a kettle. Before the War candy was primarily for children. War made the armies crave the quick-burning carbohydrates of candy which their governments did not supply. After the War candy became a $400,000,000 industry, with only 47 others ahead of it in size and importance. Last week the National Confectioners Association, reshuffled by Depression and reunited by an NRA code, met in convention in Manhattan and announced that candy sales for 1934's first four months were 28% better than in 1933. U. S. citizens were again eating an average of a pound of candy apiece every month. Candyman William F. Heide gloated, "The time when people were content to get beefsteak and potatoes has definitely come to an end."

Candy is not as simple as beefsteak & potatoes. It comes in fancy trademarked packages, in plain packages, by the pound, by the piece and, most important of all, by the bar. It is sold from dusty bins in crossroads general stores, across immaculate counters in swank city candy shops, by slot machines, by drug stores, by department stores, by grocery stores, by stationery stores, by restaurants, by hot-dog stands, by newsstands, by filling stations, even by blacksmith shops. For these retail outlets some 1,000 wholesale candy makers, of which hardly 400 are national, scrabble endlessly, hope their products will not ferment or go stale on the shelves, take them back if they do.

Head man of the candy industry does not consider himself a candy man at all. But over 60% of Milton Snavely Hershey's business is milk chocolate bars, though he has not advertised his products since 1909. In Hershey. Pa., the air is sweet for miles around, most of the profits (1933: $4,246,000) go to the Hershey Industrial School, and 76-year-old Mr. Hershey lives alone in two rooms at the country club. Through Depression he has quietly fattened his bars.

Out of the bitter cliques of the industry, one other name emerges, that of Chicago's Mars, Inc. The late Frank Clarence Mars cornered 20% of the candy bar business with his three leaders, Milky Way, Snicker and Honey Almond. If a worker in his well-scrubbed plant disobeyed his rule against jewelry and lost a ring or wristwatch on the job, he threw out the entire mix on which she had been working. The competition among the candy bar specialists is as quick-burning as carbohydrates. Williamson Candy's Oh Henry! (a core of fudge covered with soft caramel, rolled in loose peanuts and dipped in chocolate), was named for a neighborhood handy man, became a best-seller in 1920. Curtiss Candy Co.'s (Chicago) Baby Ruth pays no royalties to Babe Ruth because it was named ostensibly for the late President Cleveland's daughter "Baby Ruth,'' who died of diphtheria in 1904 at the age of 12. Curtiss launched 100 new bars, of which 87 were quick failures, twelve nine-day wonders, and the 100th Baby Ruth. Candy bars named No Kiddin', Truluv, Hoky Poky, Lobster Patty, Chicken Dinner and Fat Emma have nickered fitfully. A few old reliables hold their places on the counters beside the cash registers: Nestle's almond & milk chocolate bars, Sweets Co. of America's Tootsie Roll, D. L. Clark's Clark Bar (famed in the South and Midwest), Peter Paul, Inc. of Connecticut's Mound (coconut) and Mason, Au & Magenheimer's Peaks and Mason mints. Black Crows is weathering the general slump in licorice which almost no one eats after the age of 12. Remote from the bar ballyhoo are the makers of candy in bulk and in boxes: Chicago's Bunte Bros., E. J. Brach; New York's Henry Heide; Boston's Schrafft and New York's Loft (both also restaurateurs; ; Cambridge's New England Confectionery: Atlanta's Nunnally; Philadelphia's Stephen F. Whitman. Brandle & Smith; St. Louis' National Candy; Pittsburgh's Hardie Bros.; Milwaukee's Robert A. Johnston, Ziegler; Chattanooga's Brock Candy. Depression has hit the candy industry's gaudy heroes. Ten cent bars were reduced to 5-c- and even those were too expensive for children whose mothers doled them out a penny at a time for candy. Candy bars fell off severely while bulk penny candy shot up. The $1 and $2 boxes of fine candy were reduced as the packages grew plainer and the sales slowly increased. Value and protracted pleasure became prime factors and children picked all-day suckers, molasses candies and toffee for their money. Repeal, too, flayed its part in the candy business. Some unscrupulous businessmen in New Jersey discovered that candy containing hard liquor could be sold to children. Teachers in Brooklyn and Philadelphia began to note their pupils' dull eyes, thick speech, wobbly walk. The candies, selling for 2-c- apiece, held benedictine. cherry brandy, rum or cognac. Six of them, the equivalent of a short, stiff cocktail, were enough to make a child drunk. Several shopkeepers were arrested, claimed that they had bought the liquor candies for cash from a mysterious man in a truck who left no name or address.

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