September 13, 2026 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, David Klein loved candy so much that he studied candy bars as a kid, sold popcorn out of the back of his car, and eventually walked away from a career in law to make sweets his life. Then, in 1976, with just $800 to his name, Klein had an idea: reinvent the ordinary jelly bean. He dreamed up unusual flavors, found a manufacturer willing to make them, and gave his creation a name that would soon be known around the world: Jelly Belly.
David Klein himself shares how he turned a crazy idea into a national sensation, only to lose control of the candy he created.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
And we continue with our American stories and up next,
a true story of David Klein, an eccentric candy inventor
from L.A. who's the creator and founder of Jelly Belly
Jelly Beans, my personal favorite candy. Here's David Klein to
share the story of how he lost his beans, but
(00:32):
kept his soul.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I was born in Syracuse, New York. We left there
when I was three and a half, and I remember
nothing about it. We came to California. My dad was
the best furniture salesman in the world, and he knew
(00:54):
more about furniture than anybody alive. And when I was
growing up, I worked in a liquor store that my
aunt and grandmother owned. It was in Van Nuys, right
next to a Union 76 station that was owned by
(01:17):
Joe Punicello and that Punicello's father. And in those days,
if your family owned the liquor store, You could work
in there. And from the age of about 7 to 13,
I worked in the liquor store all during the summer
(01:40):
and after school. And I got quite an experience dealing
with the public. I learned how to count money at
the age of 7, make change, and all the things
that I learned there I wanted to put into a
book one day and the title of the book would
(02:02):
be Everything I Knew in Life I Learned Working in
a Liquor Store. And what happened was we had a
candy section there and I would go with my aunt
once a week to Smart and Final which was one
of the wholesale candy places Most of the candy bars
(02:26):
back in those days, let's see, it was 1946 plus 7.
1946 for 7, 8 for 9, 51, 2. 1953. 7
for 8 for 9, 51, 2.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, 1953.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Smart and Final would display the bars, the candy bars,
24 in a box. And if There was no shrink
(02:57):
wrap on any of the boxes. If you wanted to
taste one of the bars to see if you liked it,
you would put a nickel right in the box and
then take a bar out. And that way, whoever bought
that box would already have a sale. And I made
(03:18):
a study of candy starting at the age of seven.
I would study every bar, see where it was made,
see the company who made it, and then go to
the library. I did a study on Standard and Poor's
Guide in the financial reference section. And I would look
(03:42):
to see, for example, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger. Those were made
in those days by the Curtis Candy Company. and then
I followed the company when it was acquired by Standard Brands,
and then when it was acquired by Nabisco, and through
all of the, I would learn the history of every
(04:06):
candy bar. When I was in school, and the teacher
had to leave the room for a few minutes, she
would ask me, or she or he would ask me
to come up, in the front and talk about candy.
And kids would yell out names of candy bars and
I would tell them the history behind that particular bar.
(04:33):
I went to Van Nuys High in Van Nuys, California.
I graduated Van Nuys High with honors and went to UCLA,
graduated with a degree in economics, which is a fantastic
While I was at UCLA, I used to sell popcorn.
(04:54):
I was in the popcorn business with my uncle where
I would go after school. I had already taken the
back seat out of my car. I loaded the car
with bags of popped popcorn and I was selling those
primarily to liquor stores because you can go into a
liquor store till actually two in the morning in California.
(05:18):
You cannot sell liquor legally after 2 in the morning.
So I would usually have my route till about 11
o'clock at night. Would go in all kinds of areas
that I really should not have been in at night.
But I was. And nothing ever happened to me. And
(05:42):
then I would go home and I'd get up at 6,
7 o'clock in the morning and go to UCLA. After school,
I would go pop the popcorn in that water. And
I really learned about the food business by doing that.
(06:03):
In order to learn a business, I mean, it's nice
to read about it, but unless you really get in
there and get your hands dirty... You really need to
experience the business. Here's what happened in law school. I
(06:24):
always knew that I would never want to be an attorney.
I went there because my parents wanted me to, and
I also went there so that I would have a
legal background if we ever had any legal problems. I
graduated in the top of my class. When it came
(06:46):
to take the bar, The bar was in two parts.
The first part was in the morning, and then the
second part, it was a true and false test on
legal responsibility. And I never went back for the second part.
(07:10):
I went to get a haircut instead. I knew that
if I had passed the bar, which I'm sure I
would have, I would have become an attorney. And it
wasn't for me. It wasn't what I personally wanted to
do in my life. And it was almost as if
(07:34):
I knew I would be in the candy business someday.
It was almost like there was nothing else for me
to do. I would be in the candy business. And
there was something about candy. I liked the idea of
that you could always come up with a new idea,
a new creation. And when I was in the wholesale
(07:58):
candy and nut business, one day I came up with
the idea of creating a gourmet jelly bean. I was
watching television at 8.15, Happy Days. Happy Days was on
the air when I was talking to a buddy on
(08:18):
the phone We were talking about new businesses because I
always love to talk about new businesses. And I said,
I think I'm going to open up a candy store
and only sell jelly beans. Nothing else. And he said,
jelly beans? I said, yes. Jelly beans. No jawbreakers, no gumballs.
(08:45):
Just jelly beans. And I knew that if that's what
I concentrated on, They would have to be special jelly beans.
And that's when the idea started. I had $ 800 to
my name. No credit cards back then. The only credit
(09:05):
card that was available was Diners Club. The year was 1976.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And you've been listening to David Klein tell the story
of Jelly Belly. What a story it is. His father,
as he said, was the best furniture salesman in the world.
He learned so much about life simply working the register
and working, in essence, at the local family liquor store,
(09:31):
where he would buy supplies, buy products and services and goods.
He learned how to run a business or be a
part of a business run by a family. When we
come back, we're going to find out what happens next.
as one man pursues his dream. David Klein's story, the
story of Jelly Belly, here on Our American Stories.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Our American Stories we continue with David Klein's story and
he is the founder and inventor of Jelly Belly and
when we.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Last left off He had $ 800 to his name, and
he set out to create the world's first gourmet jelly bean.
Let's pick up where we last left off. Here's David Klein.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I approached the company that was in Oakland, California. Their
name was Herman Golitz, G-O-E-L-I-T-Z. And I asked them if
they would be my contract manufacturer. And I told them
what the idea was and they said, sure, let's give
(10:52):
it a shot. And in the beginning, we had a
very hard time selling the product. Most of the beans
back in those days, our competition, they were selling for
about 49, 59 cents a pound. And that's exactly what
(11:13):
I was paying my contract manufacturer. 59 a pound. But
that's what every other bean was retailing for. I realized
that in order to get the product off the ground,
I would have to get some publicity for it. So
(11:34):
one day I called up the Associated Press, talked to
a young man by the name of Steve Fox. He
was in charge of the business section. Associated Press was
Huge back in those days. And I realized that they
could make or break the product. I could have started
(11:56):
with a local newspaper, but I figured I'd start at
the top. I didn't have enough money to rent a store.
So I called on one of my wholesale customers who
I sold walnuts to. and almonds that they put in
(12:18):
their ice cream. They had an ice cream factory at
1824 West Main in Alhambra. And I said to them,
you have your medals from the county fair over in
the corner. I would like to have that space. This
is my new product. It's going to be called Jelly Bellies.
(12:41):
And I would like to put a little stand in there,
which I will pay for. So he said, okay, how
much rent do you want to pay? And I said,
I can't really pay any rent because I just don't
have the funds. And I said, how about if I
pay you a dollar for every pound that is sold?
(13:02):
One dollar. The first dollar goes to you. He said, well,
how much are they going to sell for? I said,
two dollars a pound. I said, I will split. Whatever
comes in, you get the first dollar. And he said,
it sounds good. So I put the stand in there.
(13:23):
I had the daughter of one of the men that
owned the ice cream parlor. Was an exceptionally good graphic artist.
And she called me up and said she needed a
project for her art center school. She was at the
(13:46):
College of Art. and design and she would like to
use Jelly Belly as her term paper and I left
it up to her. She was the one that picked
out the colors and she did the Jelly Belly logo
that is still in use today. A young lad came
(14:07):
in one day on a bicycle and he said, I
would like to try one of your strawberry jelly beans.
So I had a little spoon there. I spooned out one.
And I said, here, what do you think of it?
(14:29):
And he said, that doesn't taste like strawberry. I said, okay,
what does it taste like? He said, that tastes like
cotton candy. And as soon as he left, I had
one of the sign makers there make me a sign
that said cotton candy. And from then on in, there
(14:50):
was no strawberry flavor. It was cotton candy. And I
never got a chance to thank that young lad. He's
out there somewhere. The first order of jelly beans that
I got in, there were eight flavors. Root beer was
(15:12):
one of them. I always loved root beer The soda.
I loved root beer and I loved cream soda. So
we had a vanilla one and instead of calling it vanilla,
I named it cream soda. I always like to have
creative names to all of the flavors. Instead of calling
(15:36):
one chocolate, it was chocolate pudding. So I tried to
create as many names that were different just to distinguish
them from other products. So when I told them what
I wanted, I said, I want to make a miniature
(15:56):
jelly bean. I didn't want the big ones like they
used to see in Easter baskets. And I told them
that the beans have to be flavored on the inside
as well as on the outside shell. That way I
could do double flavors. I could do like chocolate banana
(16:19):
and do the outside chocolate and the inside banana. I
told them I wanted a watermelon bean and I wanted
it green on the outside and red on the inside.
Prior to Jelly Bellies, every jelly bean that you used
to see used to be white on the inside because
(16:40):
they made only one center. And then the They put
the flavor into the shell, if they put any flavor
at all. Most jelly beans tasted the same, except for
the black one, the licorice one. And so I was
really the first one to come up with the idea
(17:01):
of flavoring the outside as well as the inside. And
that's how Jelly Belly got its start. And most days,
We took in about $ 20. That was the average day
until the article came out in the Associated Press. And
(17:24):
then I started getting calls from department stores such as
Marshall Fields in Chicago. They said, we want to buy
your beans. I said, we're here in California. How did
you hear about them? Well, it was just in the
Chicago Tribune. It was also in the Detroit Free Press.
(17:44):
It was in the New York Times. It was in
the LA Times. The article broke on the wire and
it went everywhere. And the product really started to take off.
It took off to the point where sales were just incredible.
(18:07):
My contract manufacturer actually could not keep up with the orders.
When I initially had talked to them, I asked them,
I said, this is going to be big, guys. I said,
are you going to be able to keep up with
all the orders? And they said yes. And I did
not realize that they were primarily a small candy corn
(18:31):
manufacturer in Oakland with about 10 employees. And somehow or
another in my mind, I always pictured them as a
larger company. The biggest mistake I ever made was not
flying up there in the beginning to see what their
factory looked like. Because if I had seen it, I
(18:51):
would have known that they never would have been able
to keep up with production.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And you're listening to David Klein tell the story of
Jelly Belly.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And he's an innovator.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
There's no other jelly bean I'll eat but Jelly Belly.
And I don't care how much more expensive they are.
And I know A lot of you listening feel the
same way about your beloved beans. When we come back,
more of the story of Jelly Belly here on Our
American Stories.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
¶ ¶.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
And we continue with the story of Jelly Belly and
its founder, David Klein. And when we last left off,
thanks to Klein's round-the-clock promotion, Jelly Belly said.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
skyrocketed, but its.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Contract manufacturer in Oakland couldn't keep up with the orders.
Klein told us, quote, the biggest mistake I ever made
was not flying up there in the beginning to see
what their factory looked like, because if I'd seen it,
I would have known that they would have never been
able to keep up with productions. Here's Klein with the
final installment of his story.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And then O.J. Simpson was on the cover of People magazine,
the issue that I was in. And when my contract
manufacturer saw the picture, I had on bathing shorts and
nothing else. He turned to his sales manager and said,
(20:37):
that I had blown the whole golden goose because nobody
would buy a product from somebody that would pose half
naked in a magazine. And so at that point in time,
(20:58):
he instructed his sales manager. They also made candy corn
and it was made on the same equipment as the
jelly beans. He instructed him without telling me to sign
as many contracts as he could to be selling candy
corn at 29 cents a pound just to keep the
(21:19):
factory open. And I was never told that. So here
I am trying to promote an item that I'm wondering
why there's no production on. And what it did, it
created a void in the marketplace that other manufacturers were
just happy to fill. One day, I got a call
(21:46):
from the owner of my contract manufacturing company. And he said,
we're coming to town. And I said, okay, great. I'll
pick you up at the airport. What airport are you
flying into? And he said, it's not going to be
one of those kind of meetings. And I said, well,
(22:08):
what kind of meeting is it? He said, we're coming
to buy your trademark and we're not going to leave
until we do. As soon as I signed the contract
where we were turning the name over to them, we
were driving on Rosemead Boulevard to the bank to get
(22:30):
the contract notarized. And while on the way there, I
was sitting in the back seat. Herm, my contract manufacturer,
was in the front seat. And he turned around and
I said, Herm, I have one question for you. If
(22:53):
we were not on our way to the bank to
have this contract notarized, what would you have done? And
he said, do you really want to know I said, yeah,
tell me, what would you have done? He said, we
would have flown back to Oakland, and on Monday morning,
(23:16):
we would have shut off production to you on Jelly Bellies.
We would have cut you off completely. You would not
have any more product. We know you would have sued us,
but by the time it got to court, you would
have been broke. Those were his exact words. I can
(23:38):
remember them today like they were yesterday. We would have
cut you off. In fact, they told me as we
were going to get it notarized, they had another name
already picked out that he had on the other side
of his lap, on a piece of paper on his lap.
(23:59):
He said, you want to see the name that we
would have called it? And I said, sure. And he
showed it to me. I don't remember what that name was.
But anyway, they took over ownership of the name. They
paid us 17 cents a pound for the first 120,000
(24:21):
pounds per month royalty maximum. Once the product reached that level,
there was no royalty at all. So we only got
paid on the first 120,000 pounds at 17 cents a pound,
which came to $ 20, 000 per month. I split that with
(24:44):
my partner and then uncle Sam obviously got his share
of it. And right from the beginning, when I sold,
it was almost like selling a member of your family,
a child, uh, Jelly Belly, I spent four years of
(25:06):
my life going around the country promoting the product, being
on radio shows, on talk shows, on television shows at
least once a week and giving interviews in magazines and
all kinds of media and losing weight The ownership of
(25:32):
it was heartbreaking for me. The minute they took over,
they started packaging the product and the prior packaging had
my signature on there, Mr. Jelly Belly. About two months later,
I went into a supermarket and I looked at the
(25:54):
package and there was a computer-generated Mr. Jelly Belly instead
of my signature.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Mr.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Jelly Belly's signature. When they came out with a book
called The 30-Year History of Jelly Bellies, I was not
even mentioned in that at all. So they pretended that
I never existed. As soon as Colonel Sanders sold out,
he was still Colonel Sanders. As soon as I sold out,
(26:25):
I was nobody. So they basically... did what they could
to destroy any knowledge of me having anything to do
with the product. But for many, many years, I just
did not have a good feeling about creating the product.
(26:46):
But I've come to terms with the fact that so
many people were employed by the company. All I can
tell you is it was an experience creating a world
a product that's got about 98% name recognition. But you
(27:10):
have to recreate yourself. Recently, we got involved in the
CBD jelly bean business. We are making jelly beans with
CBD in them, 10 milligrams per bean. So right now,
back in To the jelly bean business. After all these years.
(27:35):
Last year. Around September. We started. A new venture. It's called.
The gold ticket. Dot com. It's a nationwide. Treasure hunt.
We hide a gold. Necklace. In 50 states. Different. areas
(28:00):
obviously and we give clues riddles we give a riddle
so that they know where it is the winner for
each of the 50 contests received five thousand dollars all
states were claimed and we received so much positive feedback
(28:22):
on that because while covet was going on people didn't
have too many activities that they could go to. This,
they could pile everybody into a car and travel all together.
And it was extremely successful. So it was so successful
that we're doing another round of that same activity. So
(28:46):
we're very happy doing that. And we feel like we're
doing something really good for the world. And The one
documentary that's out there now, it's shown on Amazon. And
you can watch it if you're an Amazon member for free.
(29:07):
And it's been seen all over the world. It's called Candyman,
the David Klein story. My son and his wife and
Costa Botez collaborated on it. They made it into a
very good, very great documentary, in my opinion, that will
(29:29):
stand the test of times. So that brings us up
to date. And uh i i love being in a
business where you feel that you can help people this
is america if you come up with a good idea
you can run with that idea make them happy that's
(29:54):
the whole idea behind it.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
And a great job on that piece by Greg. And
a special thanks to David Klein for telling his story.
David Klein's story, the story of Jelly Belly, here on
Our American Stories.
And we continue with our American stories and up next,
a true story of David Klein, an eccentric candy inventor
from L.A. who's the creator and founder of Jelly Belly
Jelly Beans, my personal favorite candy. Here's David Klein to
share the story of how he lost his beans, but
(00:32):
kept his soul.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I was born in Syracuse, New York. We left there
when I was three and a half, and I remember
nothing about it. We came to California. My dad was
the best furniture salesman in the world, and he knew
(00:54):
more about furniture than anybody alive. And when I was
growing up, I worked in a liquor store that my
aunt and grandmother owned. It was in Van Nuys, right
next to a Union 76 station that was owned by
(01:17):
Joe Punicello and that Punicello's father. And in those days,
if your family owned the liquor store, You could work
in there. And from the age of about 7 to 13,
I worked in the liquor store all during the summer
(01:40):
and after school. And I got quite an experience dealing
with the public. I learned how to count money at
the age of 7, make change, and all the things
that I learned there I wanted to put into a
book one day and the title of the book would
(02:02):
be Everything I Knew in Life I Learned Working in
a Liquor Store. And what happened was we had a
candy section there and I would go with my aunt
once a week to Smart and Final which was one
of the wholesale candy places Most of the candy bars
(02:26):
back in those days, let's see, it was 1946 plus 7.
1946 for 7, 8 for 9, 51, 2. 1953. 7
for 8 for 9, 51, 2.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, 1953.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Smart and Final would display the bars, the candy bars,
24 in a box. And if There was no shrink
(02:57):
wrap on any of the boxes. If you wanted to
taste one of the bars to see if you liked it,
you would put a nickel right in the box and
then take a bar out. And that way, whoever bought
that box would already have a sale. And I made
(03:18):
a study of candy starting at the age of seven.
I would study every bar, see where it was made,
see the company who made it, and then go to
the library. I did a study on Standard and Poor's
Guide in the financial reference section. And I would look
(03:42):
to see, for example, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger. Those were made
in those days by the Curtis Candy Company. and then
I followed the company when it was acquired by Standard Brands,
and then when it was acquired by Nabisco, and through
all of the, I would learn the history of every
(04:06):
candy bar. When I was in school, and the teacher
had to leave the room for a few minutes, she
would ask me, or she or he would ask me
to come up, in the front and talk about candy.
And kids would yell out names of candy bars and
I would tell them the history behind that particular bar.
(04:33):
I went to Van Nuys High in Van Nuys, California.
I graduated Van Nuys High with honors and went to UCLA,
graduated with a degree in economics, which is a fantastic
While I was at UCLA, I used to sell popcorn.
(04:54):
I was in the popcorn business with my uncle where
I would go after school. I had already taken the
back seat out of my car. I loaded the car
with bags of popped popcorn and I was selling those
primarily to liquor stores because you can go into a
liquor store till actually two in the morning in California.
(05:18):
You cannot sell liquor legally after 2 in the morning.
So I would usually have my route till about 11
o'clock at night. Would go in all kinds of areas
that I really should not have been in at night.
But I was. And nothing ever happened to me. And
(05:42):
then I would go home and I'd get up at 6,
7 o'clock in the morning and go to UCLA. After school,
I would go pop the popcorn in that water. And
I really learned about the food business by doing that.
(06:03):
In order to learn a business, I mean, it's nice
to read about it, but unless you really get in
there and get your hands dirty... You really need to
experience the business. Here's what happened in law school. I
(06:24):
always knew that I would never want to be an attorney.
I went there because my parents wanted me to, and
I also went there so that I would have a
legal background if we ever had any legal problems. I
graduated in the top of my class. When it came
(06:46):
to take the bar, The bar was in two parts.
The first part was in the morning, and then the
second part, it was a true and false test on
legal responsibility. And I never went back for the second part.
(07:10):
I went to get a haircut instead. I knew that
if I had passed the bar, which I'm sure I
would have, I would have become an attorney. And it
wasn't for me. It wasn't what I personally wanted to
do in my life. And it was almost as if
(07:34):
I knew I would be in the candy business someday.
It was almost like there was nothing else for me
to do. I would be in the candy business. And
there was something about candy. I liked the idea of
that you could always come up with a new idea,
a new creation. And when I was in the wholesale
(07:58):
candy and nut business, one day I came up with
the idea of creating a gourmet jelly bean. I was
watching television at 8.15, Happy Days. Happy Days was on
the air when I was talking to a buddy on
(08:18):
the phone We were talking about new businesses because I
always love to talk about new businesses. And I said,
I think I'm going to open up a candy store
and only sell jelly beans. Nothing else. And he said,
jelly beans? I said, yes. Jelly beans. No jawbreakers, no gumballs.
(08:45):
Just jelly beans. And I knew that if that's what
I concentrated on, They would have to be special jelly beans.
And that's when the idea started. I had $ 800 to
my name. No credit cards back then. The only credit
(09:05):
card that was available was Diners Club. The year was 1976.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And you've been listening to David Klein tell the story
of Jelly Belly. What a story it is. His father,
as he said, was the best furniture salesman in the world.
He learned so much about life simply working the register
and working, in essence, at the local family liquor store,
(09:31):
where he would buy supplies, buy products and services and goods.
He learned how to run a business or be a
part of a business run by a family. When we
come back, we're going to find out what happens next.
as one man pursues his dream. David Klein's story, the
story of Jelly Belly, here on Our American Stories.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Our American Stories we continue with David Klein's story and
he is the founder and inventor of Jelly Belly and
when we.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Last left off He had $ 800 to his name, and
he set out to create the world's first gourmet jelly bean.
Let's pick up where we last left off. Here's David Klein.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I approached the company that was in Oakland, California. Their
name was Herman Golitz, G-O-E-L-I-T-Z. And I asked them if
they would be my contract manufacturer. And I told them
what the idea was and they said, sure, let's give
(10:52):
it a shot. And in the beginning, we had a
very hard time selling the product. Most of the beans
back in those days, our competition, they were selling for
about 49, 59 cents a pound. And that's exactly what
(11:13):
I was paying my contract manufacturer. 59 a pound. But
that's what every other bean was retailing for. I realized
that in order to get the product off the ground,
I would have to get some publicity for it. So
(11:34):
one day I called up the Associated Press, talked to
a young man by the name of Steve Fox. He
was in charge of the business section. Associated Press was
Huge back in those days. And I realized that they
could make or break the product. I could have started
(11:56):
with a local newspaper, but I figured I'd start at
the top. I didn't have enough money to rent a store.
So I called on one of my wholesale customers who
I sold walnuts to. and almonds that they put in
(12:18):
their ice cream. They had an ice cream factory at
1824 West Main in Alhambra. And I said to them,
you have your medals from the county fair over in
the corner. I would like to have that space. This
is my new product. It's going to be called Jelly Bellies.
(12:41):
And I would like to put a little stand in there,
which I will pay for. So he said, okay, how
much rent do you want to pay? And I said,
I can't really pay any rent because I just don't
have the funds. And I said, how about if I
pay you a dollar for every pound that is sold?
(13:02):
One dollar. The first dollar goes to you. He said, well,
how much are they going to sell for? I said,
two dollars a pound. I said, I will split. Whatever
comes in, you get the first dollar. And he said,
it sounds good. So I put the stand in there.
(13:23):
I had the daughter of one of the men that
owned the ice cream parlor. Was an exceptionally good graphic artist.
And she called me up and said she needed a
project for her art center school. She was at the
(13:46):
College of Art. and design and she would like to
use Jelly Belly as her term paper and I left
it up to her. She was the one that picked
out the colors and she did the Jelly Belly logo
that is still in use today. A young lad came
(14:07):
in one day on a bicycle and he said, I
would like to try one of your strawberry jelly beans.
So I had a little spoon there. I spooned out one.
And I said, here, what do you think of it?
(14:29):
And he said, that doesn't taste like strawberry. I said, okay,
what does it taste like? He said, that tastes like
cotton candy. And as soon as he left, I had
one of the sign makers there make me a sign
that said cotton candy. And from then on in, there
(14:50):
was no strawberry flavor. It was cotton candy. And I
never got a chance to thank that young lad. He's
out there somewhere. The first order of jelly beans that
I got in, there were eight flavors. Root beer was
(15:12):
one of them. I always loved root beer The soda.
I loved root beer and I loved cream soda. So
we had a vanilla one and instead of calling it vanilla,
I named it cream soda. I always like to have
creative names to all of the flavors. Instead of calling
(15:36):
one chocolate, it was chocolate pudding. So I tried to
create as many names that were different just to distinguish
them from other products. So when I told them what
I wanted, I said, I want to make a miniature
(15:56):
jelly bean. I didn't want the big ones like they
used to see in Easter baskets. And I told them
that the beans have to be flavored on the inside
as well as on the outside shell. That way I
could do double flavors. I could do like chocolate banana
(16:19):
and do the outside chocolate and the inside banana. I
told them I wanted a watermelon bean and I wanted
it green on the outside and red on the inside.
Prior to Jelly Bellies, every jelly bean that you used
to see used to be white on the inside because
(16:40):
they made only one center. And then the They put
the flavor into the shell, if they put any flavor
at all. Most jelly beans tasted the same, except for
the black one, the licorice one. And so I was
really the first one to come up with the idea
(17:01):
of flavoring the outside as well as the inside. And
that's how Jelly Belly got its start. And most days,
We took in about $ 20. That was the average day
until the article came out in the Associated Press. And
(17:24):
then I started getting calls from department stores such as
Marshall Fields in Chicago. They said, we want to buy
your beans. I said, we're here in California. How did
you hear about them? Well, it was just in the
Chicago Tribune. It was also in the Detroit Free Press.
(17:44):
It was in the New York Times. It was in
the LA Times. The article broke on the wire and
it went everywhere. And the product really started to take off.
It took off to the point where sales were just incredible.
(18:07):
My contract manufacturer actually could not keep up with the orders.
When I initially had talked to them, I asked them,
I said, this is going to be big, guys. I said,
are you going to be able to keep up with
all the orders? And they said yes. And I did
not realize that they were primarily a small candy corn
(18:31):
manufacturer in Oakland with about 10 employees. And somehow or
another in my mind, I always pictured them as a
larger company. The biggest mistake I ever made was not
flying up there in the beginning to see what their
factory looked like. Because if I had seen it, I
(18:51):
would have known that they never would have been able
to keep up with production.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And you're listening to David Klein tell the story of
Jelly Belly.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
And he's an innovator.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
There's no other jelly bean I'll eat but Jelly Belly.
And I don't care how much more expensive they are.
And I know A lot of you listening feel the
same way about your beloved beans. When we come back,
more of the story of Jelly Belly here on Our
American Stories.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
¶ ¶.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
And we continue with the story of Jelly Belly and
its founder, David Klein. And when we last left off,
thanks to Klein's round-the-clock promotion, Jelly Belly said.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
skyrocketed, but its.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Contract manufacturer in Oakland couldn't keep up with the orders.
Klein told us, quote, the biggest mistake I ever made
was not flying up there in the beginning to see
what their factory looked like, because if I'd seen it,
I would have known that they would have never been
able to keep up with productions. Here's Klein with the
final installment of his story.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And then O.J. Simpson was on the cover of People magazine,
the issue that I was in. And when my contract
manufacturer saw the picture, I had on bathing shorts and
nothing else. He turned to his sales manager and said,
(20:37):
that I had blown the whole golden goose because nobody
would buy a product from somebody that would pose half
naked in a magazine. And so at that point in time,
(20:58):
he instructed his sales manager. They also made candy corn
and it was made on the same equipment as the
jelly beans. He instructed him without telling me to sign
as many contracts as he could to be selling candy
corn at 29 cents a pound just to keep the
(21:19):
factory open. And I was never told that. So here
I am trying to promote an item that I'm wondering
why there's no production on. And what it did, it
created a void in the marketplace that other manufacturers were
just happy to fill. One day, I got a call
(21:46):
from the owner of my contract manufacturing company. And he said,
we're coming to town. And I said, okay, great. I'll
pick you up at the airport. What airport are you
flying into? And he said, it's not going to be
one of those kind of meetings. And I said, well,
(22:08):
what kind of meeting is it? He said, we're coming
to buy your trademark and we're not going to leave
until we do. As soon as I signed the contract
where we were turning the name over to them, we
were driving on Rosemead Boulevard to the bank to get
(22:30):
the contract notarized. And while on the way there, I
was sitting in the back seat. Herm, my contract manufacturer,
was in the front seat. And he turned around and
I said, Herm, I have one question for you. If
(22:53):
we were not on our way to the bank to
have this contract notarized, what would you have done? And
he said, do you really want to know I said, yeah,
tell me, what would you have done? He said, we
would have flown back to Oakland, and on Monday morning,
(23:16):
we would have shut off production to you on Jelly Bellies.
We would have cut you off completely. You would not
have any more product. We know you would have sued us,
but by the time it got to court, you would
have been broke. Those were his exact words. I can
(23:38):
remember them today like they were yesterday. We would have
cut you off. In fact, they told me as we
were going to get it notarized, they had another name
already picked out that he had on the other side
of his lap, on a piece of paper on his lap.
(23:59):
He said, you want to see the name that we
would have called it? And I said, sure. And he
showed it to me. I don't remember what that name was.
But anyway, they took over ownership of the name. They
paid us 17 cents a pound for the first 120,000
(24:21):
pounds per month royalty maximum. Once the product reached that level,
there was no royalty at all. So we only got
paid on the first 120,000 pounds at 17 cents a pound,
which came to $ 20, 000 per month. I split that with
(24:44):
my partner and then uncle Sam obviously got his share
of it. And right from the beginning, when I sold,
it was almost like selling a member of your family,
a child, uh, Jelly Belly, I spent four years of
(25:06):
my life going around the country promoting the product, being
on radio shows, on talk shows, on television shows at
least once a week and giving interviews in magazines and
all kinds of media and losing weight The ownership of
(25:32):
it was heartbreaking for me. The minute they took over,
they started packaging the product and the prior packaging had
my signature on there, Mr. Jelly Belly. About two months later,
I went into a supermarket and I looked at the
(25:54):
package and there was a computer-generated Mr. Jelly Belly instead
of my signature.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Mr.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Jelly Belly's signature. When they came out with a book
called The 30-Year History of Jelly Bellies, I was not
even mentioned in that at all. So they pretended that
I never existed. As soon as Colonel Sanders sold out,
he was still Colonel Sanders. As soon as I sold out,
(26:25):
I was nobody. So they basically... did what they could
to destroy any knowledge of me having anything to do
with the product. But for many, many years, I just
did not have a good feeling about creating the product.
(26:46):
But I've come to terms with the fact that so
many people were employed by the company. All I can
tell you is it was an experience creating a world
a product that's got about 98% name recognition. But you
(27:10):
have to recreate yourself. Recently, we got involved in the
CBD jelly bean business. We are making jelly beans with
CBD in them, 10 milligrams per bean. So right now,
back in To the jelly bean business. After all these years.
(27:35):
Last year. Around September. We started. A new venture. It's called.
The gold ticket. Dot com. It's a nationwide. Treasure hunt.
We hide a gold. Necklace. In 50 states. Different. areas
(28:00):
obviously and we give clues riddles we give a riddle
so that they know where it is the winner for
each of the 50 contests received five thousand dollars all
states were claimed and we received so much positive feedback
(28:22):
on that because while covet was going on people didn't
have too many activities that they could go to. This,
they could pile everybody into a car and travel all together.
And it was extremely successful. So it was so successful
that we're doing another round of that same activity. So
(28:46):
we're very happy doing that. And we feel like we're
doing something really good for the world. And The one
documentary that's out there now, it's shown on Amazon. And
you can watch it if you're an Amazon member for free.
(29:07):
And it's been seen all over the world. It's called Candyman,
the David Klein story. My son and his wife and
Costa Botez collaborated on it. They made it into a
very good, very great documentary, in my opinion, that will
(29:29):
stand the test of times. So that brings us up
to date. And uh i i love being in a
business where you feel that you can help people this
is america if you come up with a good idea
you can run with that idea make them happy that's
(29:54):
the whole idea behind it.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
And a great job on that piece by Greg. And
a special thanks to David Klein for telling his story.
David Klein's story, the story of Jelly Belly, here on
Our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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