The Man Behind The Brand – At the Candy Counter
by Doug Gelbert
published by Cruden Bay Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 by Cruden Bay Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Open a copy of the Information Please Almanac and turn to the chapter on famous people. 4000 names and you won't know hardly any. But what about names everyone knows? Pillsbury, Kraft, Maytag, Hertz, Kellogg, Gerber. Nowhere to be found. How many names are more famous than Howard Johnson? Milton Bradley? Oscar Mayer? But who were these folks? Let’s take a look at the men behind the names on our beer and wine bottles...
Cadbury
Clark
Heath
Hershey
Mars
Nestle
Peter
Paul
Reese's
Russell Stover
Wrigley
And the man behind the brand is...
John Cadbury
Eating chocolate was unknown when John Cadbury opened a grocery in Birmingham, England in 1824. He became the first tradesman to introduce the plate glass window to the streets of Birmingham. Window shoppers who gathered to gawk at 93 Bull Street could go inside and find a real Chinaman, ornately clad in Oriental garb, dispensing tea.
Chocolate was popular in an often-bitter drink and widely used in cooking and Cadbury sold a bit on the side. In 1831 John and his brother Benjamin began making some of their own chocolate in a small warehouse near the store.
The first eating chocolate was still nearly twenty years away and the Cadburys were among the first to mill “French eating chocolate” in England. Cadbury became the dominant confectioner in 1853 when the brothers received a Royal Warrant to provide an assortment of chocolates for Queen Victoria. The English monarchy counted on Cadbury for chocolate until the 1990s; in 1986 a Cadbury Milk Tray tin was created to celebrate the union of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
In 1860 John Cadbury bought out his brother Benjamin but retired a year later. Under his sons Richard, then 26, and George, 22, the Cadburys improved the quality of its eating chocolate from cocoa butter. After dominating the chocolate-crazed English market Cadbury, then under the direction of John Cadbury’s great-grandson, entered the United States market in 1978, seven years after the creation of its famous Cadbury Creme Eggs.
David Clark
David Lytle Clark, the "Pittsburgh Candy King", came to western Pennsylvania from County Derry, Ireland at the age of 8 in 1872. He earned his first money toting market baskets along the city streets for pennies.
At age 19 he opened a one-room candy business. While his one employee, a cook, concocted the candy Clark drove from store to store in a wagon selling it. In 1886 Clark chewed his first gum. He asked a druggist how the new novelty was made and learned about chicle. Clark went to New York and returned with a bale of chicle.
Clark colored his new gum pink because he thought it was pretty. He flavored his new gum with mountain leaves because as a boy he liked to chew them. Clark's personal tastes appealed to the market. His gum sold so fast he had to open a new factory to meet the demand. The D.L. Clark Company was big business.
Over the next 30 years Clark made candies, including a big-selling candy-coated popcorn. In 1917, as a treat for soldiers, Clark made his first 5｢ bar, a honey-combed ground roasted peanut bar covered with milk chocolate called the "Clark bar". The wrapper encouraged buyers to "Try eating a Clark bar every day between 2 & 4 p.m. Drink a glass of water and see how much pep you have when the day is done."
It must have been an energetic America at day's end because Clark was soon selling one million of his chocolate bars a day. In 1981 the Largest Candy Bar In The World was created - a monster 3100-pound Clark bar 15 feet long and 20 inches thick. It was the equivalent of 19,000 Clark bars.
Clark did his best to ensure the continuance of his family candy business. He sired 13 children with his first wife and when she died, he married her sister. But one thing could not survive. The Clark bar went out of production in 1994.
Lawrence Heath
Lawrence Heath was different from most of America’s candy pioneers. He came to candy bars late in life, after a career as a schoolteacher and principal. In 1914, at the age of 45, Heath opened a small confectionery on the west side of the public square in Robinson, Illinois. With his sons Heath sold fountain drinks, ice cream and a distinctive English toffee he cooked in his kitchen in the back room of the shop.