If you work in a family business, then you already know. It’s not easy. Whether it’s a local candy store or an online wholesale business, there are politics and emotions involved that no corporate-culture business even comes close to. So how do you manage all of that so your family-owned can thrive?

Communication is key. Family dynamics are complex and always evolving. If you own a family-run business, maybe you hope to one day sell it and retire. Certainly, if someone came along with a big enough check, you’d consider selling it even sooner than that. But have you thought about the fact that your kids might want to take it over one day? Managing their expectations is an important part of maintaining a healthy and honest perspective for everyone.

It’s a complicated situation if you have a child who has grown up being involved in the business. He or she might not have ever known a world where the business didn’t exist. They have likely spent most of their years helping out around the store and created a powerful emotional connection. Talking with them about the future of the business creates an understanding that they will be involved in, and not excluded from, the decisions even if they won’t have the ultimate say in what happens. Don’t let years go by while allowing expectations to continue to diverge. That’s a recipe for a family crisis.

Know your roles. Many family business owners say that they fell into their roles naturally. Don’t count on it. Defining specific roles is helpful in many ways. It establishes boundaries that make it less likely that family members will be stepping on each others figurative toes. It also helps the business work more efficiently. If everyone has their own unique role that fits into the overall system of running the business, then it’s more likely that the balance of labors is spread out to cover all the important areas of the business. If everyone is concerned with inventory, and no one is focused on improving sales, the business will suffer and tensions could run high.

These guidelines are true for every business, whether you’ve got a chocolate and salt water taffy shop on Main Street or an online bulk candy store. In our next edition of How to Make a Family Business Work, we’ll discuss maybe the most important factor in keeping it all together: trust.

When someone told me the other day that The Hershey Company (you know, that big one in Pennsylvania with all the kisses?) is making mobile phones, my first thought was: “why in God’s name would they try to compete with Apple and Google?” My second thought was: “are they available with almonds?”

More interested in finding out the answer to the latter, I went hunting to verify the merits of this preposterous claim. Surely, someone was pulling the leg of the guy who loves candy and technology above all else. I have come to find out that this story is true. According to Hershey themselves, they are, in fact, developing a mobile network…in Africa.

That’s right. As a part of their continued effort to improve the lives of cocoa farmers in West Africa, Hershey has been rolling out a mobile phone network in Ghana. It’s called CocoaLink and it started last year. The program is a joint venture with the World Cocoa Foundation and the Ghana Cocoa Board where cocoa farmers will use low cost mobile phones linked to the Hershey CocoaLink network with the idea that it will help them be better farmers.

The idea, as I understand it, is that the farmers will not only be more productive when they can communicate more quickly and efficiently within their community, but the phones will also be used to deliver informative tips to help them. Text and voice messages about cocoa farming best practices, sustainability and family health are sent to the farmers with the hopes that they will adopt better techniques and live healthier lives.

Healthier, more productive farmers means more chocolate for Hershey and more income for the farmers. It’s a win-win. Farmers who make more money and have healthier families are more likely to keep growing cocoa. A healthy cocoa industry helps West African countries, like Ghana, achieve and maintain a more stable and diverse economic system. Sounds pretty good. So, how’s the progress so far?

According to Hershey, it’s going well enough to expand into the Ivory Coast. There are about 600,000 cocoa farmers there and it is estimated that half are already using low cost mobile phones.

I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that I won’t be able to use a cell phone that looks like a Hershey bar here in the US of A. But it sounds like this program has the potential to change lives and support community growth and progress in an area of the world that desperately needs it.

Chocolate is making the world a better place.

Support Hershey in their mission to help West African farmers, buy Hershey’s chocolate bulk candy at ACandyStore.com.

Someone said there are no purely self-less acts. Hershey has recently committed to invest over $10 million to help the farming families in West Africa. Cocoa farming families, that is. They want the farmers to not only produce more chocolate for their popular candy bars and snacks, but to produce it for a long time forward. Is it all about the bottom line or is there real charity at work here?

In most West African farming communities, the resources to farm efficiently are limited. Not only do they lack all the sophisticated technological machinery and equipment that can optimize yield with computer-like accuracy, but basic family needs are sometimes lacking as well. Health is a big one. Sanitation and drought concerns have caused health issues, but lack of proper nutrition is a factor too. Part of that is because the families don’t have enough money to properly feed themselves.

Hershey is doing a great thing by not just giving the farmers a fish, but teaching them how to fish. I knew there was a parable in this story somewhere. By working with local experts in agriculture and in community development, Hershey hopes to achieve genuine progress in these areas. They estimate that family farms are capable of producing 50% more cocoa than they currently produce. That kind of bulk increase would provide a nice bump in the income of the farming families which would benefit the communities as a whole.

This isn’t the first time Hershey has gotten involved with cocoa farmers. They have been providing assistance to for over 50 years. So, they now have an extensive network of partnerships they can leverage to provide knowledge and other resources to the West African cocoa farmers. There are currently 2 million of these farmers and their growth and continued success would mean that Hershey will have a reliable supplier for the raw material that makes some of the best chocolate candy out there.

Here’s what their CEO, J.P. Bilbrey, had to say about the project:

“Our global consumers want The Hershey Company to be a leader in responsible business practices and in finding smart ways to benefit cocoa communities. We are excited and humbled by this opportunity to create positive change in West Africa.”

Corporate CEO-speak or genuine good will? I say, who cares. If it works like they say it will, it’s a win-win. We, the candy lovers, get to enjoy Hersheys chocolate for years to come and communities is West Africa have healthier and happier families. Kudos to Hershey on a smart business move for all the right reasons.

Support Hershey and their campaign; buy Hershey chocolate candy in bulk at ACandyStore.com.

Photograph by: Karen Robinson
Hersheys Helps African Family Farms Make More Money and Grow More Cocoa.

If creepy is the new funny, then the latest Jolly Ranchers commercial is hilarious.

The latest in a trend of awkward, what-the-heck-was-that-all-about candy commercials this Jolly Ranchers Crunch and Chew commercial features a turtle that not only uses telepathy to communicate with others, but can also fly (without wings, or course – turtles don’t have wings, duh), and when provoked shoot lasers out of its eyes.

And if you think that’s a little weird, the turtle is hanging out with some really creepy guys to boot. The first guy is an older tweaked out guy compulsively lifting weights in front of a television. The next guy is sitting at the table with the turtle and looking like he’s got a severe case of the munchies.

Candy companies have started hitting the awkwardly unconfortable angle really hard. It started with the Skittles commercial with the guy in an interview who has a really long beard that he can manipulate to grab things with. Naturally, he uses his scraggly beard powers to attempt to grab the Skittles from the interviewer. It’s an awkward exchange and it’s awkward to watch. But it definitely gets your attention.

We see this trend with snack foods as well. Cheetos commercials have been pushing the awkward envelope with the latest line of Chester Cheetah commercials. In one commercial the cheetah and another guy are having a house party in a house that has barely begun to be built. If you’ve seen it, you know it’s weird, but that’s the goal of the campaign. The funny thing is, weird works with snack foods and, perhaps, candy too.

The Jolly Ranchers commercial ends with the turtle feeling provoked by the man’s desire to eat him. He shoot off a warning laser shot from his eyeballs and flies out the door. It creates a moment in the room where the viewers look at each other and ask, “did that really just happen?” Jolly Rancher does a good job of working the candy in there as well, so you remember what they’re selling too.

What do you think? Are these commercials targeting stoner-types or are they just trying to get your attention?

You know those vending machine games where you try to direct the claw to the right spot so when it drops it will grab a toy and bring it back to you?  Yeah, I was never any good at those either.  They are designed to make it seemed very difficult for you to win the candy and toys inside.   But the designers didn’t account for this brilliant 3 year old boy.

Who knows what drove your Mr. Noah Jeffrey to climb up through the chute and into the belly of the claw machine.  Maybe he was out of quarters and frustrated that he hadn’t been able to retrieve his prize the conventional way.  Maybe he wanted to show the engineers their design flaw.  Or maybe he saw something he wanted and applied a fundamental law of geometry.  The shortest distance between a boy and his candy is a straight line.

It didn’t take long for Noah to reach the pinnacle of his mountain and assume his role as king of the day.  He must have felt like Scrooge McDuck swimming around his money bin as he waded through the pool of goodies.  But he didn’t waste much time frolicking around.  No sooner than when he reached the inner reservoir did he begin to distribute his riches to the other kids in the area.  This boy is no king, he is the next Robin Hood!

As the growing crowd of children laughed and sang his praise, the boy ate his favorite candies and played with his toys triumphantly.  But this story is not without a fair amount of drama.  Not long after a crowd started to form, his parents came over to see what was happening.  They noticed that Noah was sweating badly.  These vending machines are not made for people to inhabit.  There is little oxygen in there and the lights make it very hot, actually.  Someone needed to help him get out fast.

With the fire department on their way and a crowd of people watching his every move, the young man, prompted enthusiastically (and bribed with more candy), climbed back down the chute.  But the mechanism makes it more difficult to exit the system than to enter, so he got stuck.  It proved only a brief hiccup, however, as his was far enough down by that point that his mother could pull him out the rest of the way.

So the funny story ended happily, with Noah wanting to go back in as soon as he came out.  In the drama of the moment, he’d forgotten to fill his pockets to the brim with assorted bulk candy and toys.

We recently got word that there is a new type of milk chocolate bar out there that is all the rage. It’s called Camels Milk Chocolate. No, that’s no the brand name, it’s the type of chocolate it’s made from. Like a regular milk chocolate bar but instead of cows milk it is made with milk from a camel, probably many camels. Is camel milk really fit to be used in bulk candy like this?

I was pretty skeptical, for a lot of reasons, when I heard that camel’s milk chocolate bars were becoming available. Maybe I need to get out more, but I’d never heard of people drinking camel’s milk, much less making confectionary delights. So I did some digging around to see if anyone else had heard of this crazy phenomenon and I realized why I hadn’t heard of it. Camel’s milk is widely used in the Middle East, a place I rarely visit (aka,have never been to), but not in many other places. That makes sense, I guess. That’s where the camels are.

When you need milk, and don’t have any cows around, you gotta get it form somewhere, right? So, I figured it was a lesser product but that the people were just getting by with what they have. I was wrong. Camel’s milk is actually better than cow’s milk! Here are the top reasons I found for why camel’s milk beats cow’s milk.

First of all, let’s get the most important question out of the way. Does it taste good? You can throw away all the other questions if no one can stomach the stuff. But all reports seem to be very positive! It’s milder than goat’s milk and free of the allergens that cow’s milk can have. Disclaimer: I haven’t tasted it for myself (yet), but am on the lookout for it locally.

Now that that’s out of the way, here are other great reasons to consider camel’s milk a viable product for chocolate or any other food or beverage concoction. It’s healthier than cow’s milk. It’s high in vitamin C, low in fat and won’t curdle in your stomach like some other milks. It’s considered to be the closest thing to mother’s milk!

No chemicals are added either, which is especially appealing in the days of cow hormones. I found out that since camel’s milk is already so rich in calcium, iron and vitamin C, it doesn’t need any nutritional assistance to be super healthy. It’s considered to be a more humane process than cow’s milk too.

So now that you’re all read up on camel’s milk, you should be more than ready to try the camel milk chocolate bar. It looks like they are readily available in the UAE. We are currently looking into US distributors so that we can get some free ones for our staff add them to our bulk candy inventory asap.

Lately there’s been quite a bit of a hubbub surrounding a new candy item sold in corner stores and novelty shops. Parents everywhere are outraged to the point that they have enlisted the help of their City Councilman to intervene. So what is the big deal about this new line of bulk candy products? Parents say they encourage the use of marijuana.

How could a piece of candy or a lollipop encourage kids to smoke pot? Well, the candies are all shaped like marijuana leaves, for one thing. The gummy candies are little, plump green marijuana leaves and the lollipops look like a pot leaf on a stick. They are also packaged in bags that have a picture of a young man (or boy, you could argue) with a joint in his mouth. He’s smiling and raising his hand in a peace sign. He is a cartoon character and the graphics on the package are cartoonish in nature as well.

Yup, that sounds pretty much like a marijuana themed product targeted at kids. If you think so too, we’re not the only ones. Anti-drug activists and parents everywhere are up in arms about these products’ availability in stores where children visit.

The creator of these pot candies claims that they promote the legalization of marijuana, a plant whose medicinal qualities have made it legal for those with a prescription. In addition to the cartoon pot smoking boy, the packaging of these candies also has the word “Legalize” in big letters. There is a movement to legalize marijuana for everyone, but it has not gained much traction with lawmakers as of yet.

Perhaps it was not his intention to promote the illegal use of marijuana. But to overlook the potential for these products to do just that is at best naïve. If I were a company who wanted to promote the use of marijuana to young people, I’m not sure how you could create a product the would be more suited to doing so than candy. And then sell it in corner shops.

I’m not saying this company has any intention other than to create a controversy for publicity sake. But all intentions aside, if you ask yourself “does this product have the potential to promote drug use among children”, you are lying if you say it does not. Straight up.

Here are the owner of that company’s words from a quote in the Huffington Post. “We don’t advocate for a political position. We just look at what the marketplace wants and respond to it. It’s just candy… It’s sour apple flavor, it doesn’t claim to be pot in disguise or anything like that.”

How much you wanna bet this guy doesn’t have kids?

(AP Photo/David Duprey)

What was your first candy bar? Butterfinger or Snickers maybe? Did you ever wonder where the first candy bar came from. Yes, there is that story about Joseph Fry in the 1800s, but there could a candy bar that arrived much much earlier than that. And now it’s back!

In San Francisco recently, the 37th annual Fancy Food Show featured three modern versions of what could be called the first candy bars ever. It’s called panforte and it originated in Italy during the time of the Crusades as early as the 11th Century.

It’s not a candy bar like you’d find today, it’s more of a very dense fruit and honey cake. In fact the word, panforte, literally means “strong bread”. But all the key ingredients are there: sugar, nuts, cinnamon, honey and more. And it’s made in a really similar fashion to many other candies we know and love, by heating sugar and honey to a high enough temperature to change their consistency to a hardened state.

Now they’re coming back as a high-end dessert item. Several companies in California have begun making this medieval treat again and say that using local ingredients have made panforte more palatable to the modern candy lover. From dates to dried papaya, the ingredients vary slightly depending on the batch. Recent versions are reportedly softer and not as rock hard as their ancestor versions.

Most of the current panforte connoisseurs laud the flexibility they have to be eaten as appetizers or desserts or even with a cheese platter. A candy bar for appetizer and dessert!? Sign me up.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Panforte, check out these resources:

Panforte Company
From Napa (image source)
Huffington Post

We’re suckers for a great story about kids and candy. Maybe that’s why I had to write up this story about an English girl who won herself 443 jelly beans.

That’s a lot of jelly beans for a young lady of 5 years. She earned them in a local contest held this past holiday season where participants were asked to guess how many jelly beans were in the prize jar. Ms. Ella Walsh stepped right up and said “444”!

That was, of course, not technically the correct answer, but since she and one other contestant were only off by one measly jelly bean, they were declared the finalists in the contest. So what does one do to determine the winner of a contest when the finalists already know they’re very close to the real number? Make them guess again and see who gets closer the second time?

Nope. Just a simple name drawn out of a hat. But judging from her adorable picture, we all know that it was not chance that won her those jelly beans, it was truly destiny.

She is pretty cute, huh?

Congratulations, Ella!

Wexford People