Candymaking in Canada
Candymaking in Canada
The History and Business of Canada’s
Confectionery Industry
David Carr
Copyright © David Carr, 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Andrea Pruss
Design: Emma Kassirer
Printer: University of Toronto Press
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Carr, David, 1940-
Candymaking in Canada / David Carr.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55002-395-0
1. Chocolate candy — Canada. 2. Candy industry — Canada. I. Title.
| HD9330.C653C65 2002 | 338.4'7664153'0971 | C2002-902293-2 |
1 2 3 4 5 07 06 05 04 03
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Except where noted, permission to reprint photographs was obtained from the following:
All photographs of Nestlé products, personnel, machinery, advertising, etc., including “After Eight” and “Rowntree” brands, courtesy of Nestlé Canada Inc.
All photographs of Neilson’s products, personnel, machinery, advertising, etc., including “No-Name” and “Cadbury” brands, courtesy of William Neilson Ltd. / Ltée.
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Candymaking in Canada
To Mom and Dad
Acknowledgements
Within hours of the good people at Dundurn giving the go-ahead for this book I was in my local telling a number of friends about the project for the first time. For two hours the table was consumed with talk of favourite candies both past and present. The conversation and the enthusiasm in which it was conducted signalled I was on the right track.
Writing your first real book (I had previously done an in-house publication for a client) is a longer journey than one thinks. It encompasses not only those who help you from start to finish, but also those who supported you long before the first advance cheque. They are not always the same people, but they should be recognized nevertheless.
It is incredible the number of friends and family members who have stepped up to the plate. Susan Puff and Ross Lewchuk, who weave their special magic in anything I take on. Norma Bishop and Ted Raspin, who selflessly gave time on this particular project no matter when I called, or what I needed. Chris Hernandez, who was available when the computer forgot to do what computers do and it looked like chunks of manuscript may have been lost.
I would also like to thank friends like Stuart Irvine, Peter McLarty, Carol Manwell and Scott Turner, who have worked hard on projects that never came together, and remain a foundation for the one that finally has.
Then there is the book itself. A large number of candymakers came forward to help with this project, and have been patient while I raided their archives and have held on to their precious photographs. These people provided me with raw material that, like chocolate or candy, had to be molded. And for that I offer special thanks.
One final note. The history of chocolate and candy is a story of many conflicting dates and time frames (sometimes from the same source). I have done my best to ensure accuracy, but accept full responsibility for any errors contained in this book.
1
Letter From the Candy Counter
“Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power . . . it is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.”
Baron Justus von Liebig
Selecting a snack treat is not what it used to be. At the corner store, chocolate and candy are two islands in a sea of tempting alternatives that has expanded from potato chips and ice cream to include individual packages of cookies and crackers.
The total candy market in Canada, including chocolate bars, boxed chocolates, cough drops, candied breath mints, and non-chocolate confections, is
Chocolate continues to dominate the candy counter, with close to 50 percent of the market. The bulk of those sales have been described by one European-based chocolate society as a “low-grade, cloying confection.” The difference between low-grade and high-grade chocolate is the amount of cocoa butter introduced into the recipe. The higher the butter count, the better the chocolate. Or so say the experts.
Neilson’s dominated the candy counter, as this photograph shows. Still, there are packaging examples of other products, including Rolo, Biscrisp, Caramilk, Aero, Sweet Marie, Caravan, Kit Kat, Coffee Crisp, Smarties, Raisins, Milky Way, and Turkish Delight.
Most Canadians appear to think differently. Last year, on average, we gobbled up approximately twenty-five pounds of chocolate. Kit Kat remains the perennial favourite, with Coffee Crisp, Oh Henry, Smarties, Caramilk, Reese Peanut Butter Cups, Aero, the original Mars bar, Wunder Bar, and Mr. Big routinely rounding out the top ten. Interestingly, Snickers, which usually finishes in the top three in the United States, ranked eleventh in Canada at last count.
Also of interest is the fact that only one in ten chocolate bars lasts for very long in the marketplace. Five of the bars on that list have been around since before the Second World War—all but two since the 1960s.
Manufacturers have been trying to improve the odds of