History of Esther Price Candy

 

                       Esther Price Candy - Chocolate, Chocolate, and more Chocolate!

Since I was little, I can remember my family buying Esther Price Candy for gifts and special occasions. To this day, my family looks forward to their favorite kind of candy from Esther Price Candy. They have assortments of milk or dark chocolate creams, pralines, caramels, turtles, and many more.

In the 1920's Esther Rohman married Ralph Price, and they later had twins. She made fudge at home after her children went to sleep, and this gave them extra money. Plus she had made chocolates and gained a good number of customers before she was married. She experimented with dipping fudge in chocolate and making smaller pieces. She used six hot plates in her kitchen, and cooled her creations in the basement on makeshift tables. Then she expanded in her home and decorated the candy in her attic on more makeshift tables. When she was a teenager, she loved making fudge, and she sold it door-to-door while working at Rike's Department Store in Dayton. Then she had to make a decision to stay in high school or quit and start her business. She chose to devote full-time at home to start her chocolate candy business while single, 

                                  

By 1926, Esther had expanded her selection of chocolates and fudge in her kitchen, and she couldn't make it fast enough to keep up with the demand. She purchased a building and opened her factory headquarters on Wayne Avenue in Dayton, Ohio close to her home. This is where all the candy is made today! She owned the business for fifty years. She used the finest ingredients for her candy, and the buyer who bought her business in 1976 have held to her high standards today. She has seven locations in Ohio to date. They also have added online ordering to their website. They also have expanded the number of stores who sell their candy to 87, and they have about one million orders per year. During their 30 week production period, they make about 5,000 pounds of chocolates a day.

Many admired and respected Esther Price for starting a business when it was hard for women to do so in the 1920's. But her community supported her, and she sold quality and delicious chocolates. 

Thank you for reading about one of my favorite people, Esther Price. 

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M&M's — The Candy of Love?

 By Kathy Kovach

Who doesn’t love to get candy on Valentine’s Day? A box of assorted chocolates, candy hearts with Be Mine stamped on them, or a bottle of red and white M&M’s poured out into decadent champagne flutes. But there was a price paid for all of this sweet romance.

Specifically, M&M’s.

Forrest Mars, Sr. worked with his father, Frank C. Mars, founder of the American candy company Mars, Inc. In the 1920s through 1930s, Forrest was responsible for the introduction of such sweets as Milky Way, Snickers, and 3 Musketeers. Forrest wished to expand the company abroad, but his father opposed the idea. Not a stranger to disagreements with his parent, he left the company and moved to England.

While there, he manufactured the Mars Bar for the troops. During a trip to Spain, he noticed that soldiers were eating small beads of candy-coated chocolate. Knowing that sales of chocolate plummeted during the summer months due to melting, Forrest found these candies, called Smarties, intriguing. The candy coating protected the chocolate inside.

Forrest Mars returned to the United States and partnered with Bruce Murrie, son of Hershey executive William Murrie. Bruce had also had disagreements with his father on how he ran his company. They packaged their product in cardboard tubes exclusively for rations during World War II. Even during a chocolate and sugar shortage, the Mars and Hershey powerhouses ensured the soldiers would have a steady supply of the candy they named after themselves, M&M’s—Mars and Murrie. Later, in 1949, “melt in your mouth, not in your hands” became the ad slogan for the candy they developed.

Eventually, Mars and Murrie had a falling out, not seeing eye-to-eye on the direction of the company. They parted ways, and Mars accepted the one million dollar buy-out. This meant that Hershey chocolate would no longer be filling the candy shells.

The beloved confection we know today had a rocky start with family fallouts, a stealing of an idea, and two partners who couldn’t make a go of it for the long haul.

No worries, however. Forrest Mars went on providing the sweet crunchy goodness, developing the candy into what we know today. The Mars company still supports our troops, and that makes the company Aces in my book.

MissAdventure Brides Collection
Seven daring damsels don’t let the norms of their eras hold them back. Along the way these women attract the attention of men who admire their bravery and determination, but will they let love grow out of the adventures? Includes:
"Riders of the Painted Star" by Kathleen E. Kovach

1936 Arizona
Zadie Fitzpatrick, an artist from New York, is commissioned to go on location in Arizona to paint illustrations for an author of western novels and falls for the male model.

Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally through Barbour Publishing, Inc. as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband, Jim, raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in northeast Colorado, she's a grandmother, though much too young for that. Kathleen is a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God's peculiar people.

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