The Charms Candy Company was a
candy
Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies ( Australian English, New Zealand English), is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, called '' sugar confectionery'', encompasses any sweet confection, ...
company founded in 1912 and sold to
Tootsie Roll Industries in 1988.
History
Walter W. Reid Jr. founded the Charms Candy Company in 1912. The company was originally called Tropical Charms, a reference to the individually wrapped square-shaped hard candies, which were one of the first of their kind to be individually wrapped in
cellophane.
Tropical Charms was founded in
Bloomfield, New Jersey
Bloomfield is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the township's population was 53,105. It surrounds the Bloomfield Green Historic District.
History
The initial patent for the land tha ...
. The company name was eventually shortened to Charms.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the
U.S. Army began including Charms candies in
combat rations as a supplemental energy form.
Charms candies would continue to be included in MREs until 2007.
Over the intervening years the candies came to be associated with bad luck, with the superstition becoming so widespread that it led to their removal.
After the war, Walter Reid III, the son of the founder, took control of the company.
The company was led by Reid III, Ross B. Cameron Sr. (Walter W. Reid Jr.’s son-in-law) and his two sons, Ross B. Cameron Jr. and Reid B. Cameron.
The Charms Candy Company moved its manufacturing plant from Bloomfield, NJ to Freehold, NJ in 1973.
The company eventually purchased and built a manufacturing plant in Covington,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...
.
In 1988, the Charms Candy Company was sold to
Tootsie Roll Industries. With the addition of Blow Pops to their product line, which included
Tootsie Pops
A Tootsie Pop (known as Tutsi Chupa Pop in Latin America) is a hard candy lollipop filled with the chocolate-flavored chewy Tootsie Roll candy. They were invented in 1931 by an employee of The Sweets Company of America. Tootsie Rolls had themsel ...
, the Tootsie Roll Company became the largest lollipop manufacturer in the world.
Products
Charms developed a wide variety of confections.
Tropical Charms, later renamed Charms, are square candies that come in cherry, grape, lemon, lime, orange, and raspberry flavors.
From 1937 until the 1950s Charms produced pecan-filled
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civil ...
bars called "25 Carats" made with
The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...
top grade chocolate (at that time, Hershey had 3 grades of chocolate). The chocolate candy was discontinued due to the high margin cost and other internal problems.
In the 1960s besides making other Holiday candy lollipops they also produced Charms "Jellies" and
Chuckles Gum Drops. Later they created a peanut butter-filled hard candy in the shape of a
peanut
The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...
.
On Nov. 28, 1966, Thomas T. Tidwell, founder of Triple T. Co. Inc., filed a patent for “Method for making candy with
gum
Gum may refer to:
Types of gum
* Adhesive
* Bubble gum
* Chewing gum
* Gum (botany), sap or other resinous material associated with certain species of the plant kingdom
** Gum arabic, made from the sap of ''Acacia senegal'', an Old World tree s ...
inside.”
Triple T initially marketed the product as the Triple Treat. In 1973, Triple T sold the idea to Charms, where it was renamed Blow Pop. Blow Pops come in
watermelon
Watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 var ...
,
strawberry
The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely a ...
,
cherry
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus '' Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet '' Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The ...
,
grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry (botany), berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non-Climacteric (botany), climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of ...
, and sour
apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...
flavors (sour apple was introduced later and was originally round like an apple). Blow Pops became the Charms Candy Company's best-selling product of all time.
Besides the Blow Pop, the candy company produced Charms Squares, Sweet & Sour Pops, Sour Balls and many other smaller candy products.
See also
*
List of confectionery brands
References
{{Tootsie Roll confectionery products
Brand name confectionery
Candy
Lollipops
Products introduced in 1973