July 25, 2023 • 41 mins
Our sweetest episode yet! Christi sits down with Doug Simons Jr, VP of Manufacturing and Co-owner of Enstrom Candies in Grand Junction, CO. Get a fascinating look behind the scenes of how their world famous toffee is made and their commitment to quality at this multi-generational family company.
You'll probably want to order some toffee after listening, so head over to their website to get some STAT! Can't wait? They have multiple retail locations as well, locations listed on their website.
If you prefer to watch your podcasts, head over to our YouTube page!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The Full Circle podcast, compelling interviews
and incredible tales fromColorado's Western Slope, from
the mountains to the desert.
Christy Reese and her team herefrom the Movers Shakers, and
characters of the Grand Valleyand surrounding mountain towns
that make the Western slope theplace we all love. You'll
learn, you'll laugh, you'lllove with the full circle. Hi
everyone. Kristy Reese here.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the Full Circlepodcast. I'm really excited
today to welcome our guest,Doug Simmons, Jr . From Strom
Candies. Strom , not Stroms,right?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Strom Candies .
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Right . Strom Candies. Um, thanks for joining
us, Doug.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I've been really excited to get to know you
better and , um, excited tolearn more about your company.
And first of all, let me say Ilove Strom Toffee. I mean, I
could eat so much ofthat, and we give it as gifts
here at our office, so there'salways some in our
refrigerator. And so when, aswe as realtors don't get to eat
lunch sometimes, that's allwe're eating all day.
(01:02):
And it is really nutritious anddelicious.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Appreciate it . You got some protein in there.
Yeah, it's made with love. Nocalories.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
No calories. Thanks for that. Now I can eat more .
Um, gosh, where do we start? Soyour current , uh, title is
Vice President of Manufacturingand you're co-owner with your
brother, Jim. That's
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You have taken over running the company from your
folks?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
We have. I , my , my brother and I still currently
share an office with my dad,Uhhuh . So he's in there. He's
in there most days, but I'd sayfour days a week. Okay . We're
slowly pushing him out, butUhhuh , but he's still fully
hands-on. He likes to stay . Hewants to see us doing
everything, but he definitelystill has his say when he wants
to.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So when he married your mom, 'cause your mom is
Strom , um, did he get into thecompany right away? Did he have
a love for what they weredoing? He,
Speaker 3 (01:58):
He did. He started working at some odd jobs. They
, his first job that made himclean up, I guess they call it
the slop on the floor after you, after you cook for a while
with butter, just the butter,the fumes and , and air and
everything, sorry , collecting.
And he's the one that was inthere doing the dirty work,
cleaning that up. And then heeventually got into making the
handmade toffee. Um, but thenhe did end up marrying my
(02:21):
mother and they were workingtoge together there for a while
. And it came to a point whenmy grandparents Amal and Mary
Strom had asked , uh, my mom'stwo brothers, Rick and Bill, if
they want , had any interest.
And at that time they didn't.
And then they asked my parentsif they did, and like, Hey,
we're, we're very interested.
(02:41):
So they ended up buying thecompany from Mary and Amal
Strom ,
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Your brother , uh, uncles kind of kicking
themselves later down the road.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
They , they were a little bit here and there. My
uncle Bill was a farmer and hewent out to Kansas and helped
run farm equipment and kind ofliked doing that. He never
really wanted to come back.
Yeah. Um , my uncle Rick and myAunt Linda, actually, as soon
as we started opening stores inDenver, don't mark me on this,
but I think it was the earlynineties that we opened a store
(03:11):
in Cherry Creek. Mm-hmm.
. And, and now wehave one in Arba as well. They
still manage the stores outthere. And oh , wonder ,
actually just last year, mycousin Brendan just, he's
moving in, he's gonna startmanaging 'em . And my aunt and
Uncle Rick are kind , uh,moving their way out.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Awesome. So it's a real family affair. It is .
'cause you're fourth generationYeah . In the business, right?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yep . My mom's grandfather, my
great-grandfather started in1960
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Mm-hmm.
. And he was justmaking candy for friends and
that kind of a hobby.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That's , that's exactly what he said . He used
to say, he is like, I'm justhere making candy for a few of
my friends. Uhhuh. And it's turned into a little
bit more than that now. Butyeah,
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I love thinking about what it was like in Grand
Junction during those years andhow word got out. You know, we
didn't have social media andall that kind of stuff, so yeah
.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It , it , it was more or less a hobby for him
when he started doing it. Um,he actually, it was back when
people were rationing theirsugar and whatnot. And then he
had people that rationing it ,giving him , giving him sugar.
And he'd be just making it as ahobby. And he'd give it to a
few , few friends here andthere and like, man, you , you
should really , you could takethis somewhere and be like,
(04:18):
before you know it, he startedmailing it to friends and
family in different states. Andbefore we knew it, he had a
mail order company. Mm-hmm.
.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And did he perfect that recipe for the Almond
Toffee early on? Or was itsomething that you all have
continued to change or improve?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I , I think that's one of the major things. And
that's why my mom's stillaround. It's like, we do not
mess with the recipe. It's theexact same. A lot of companies
nowadays. You can see you oneday want to streamline things
and you can get way moreproduction out, get longer
shelf when you're , uh,tweaking the recipe, adding
corn syrup and different thingsthat you don't really want on
your label. We still have aclean , uh, label. It's got ,
(04:58):
uh, butter, sugar, almonds,chocolate water, and a little
bit of , uh, sunflower ethin asan emulsifier. Mm-hmm.
.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And we were talking earlier when you first got here
about , uh, secret, a secret tothe toffee and the recipe. But
you said there's no really nosecrets,
Speaker 3 (05:17):
No secret. We've always, it's been wide , like
right in the open, we have thewindow there. We don't hide the
ingredients. You see? Exactly.
If you wanna watch how muchwe're putting in, they see how
it's putting , they're puttingin. We'll even share the amount
we're putting if you want. Butit's really, the elevation is
what is helping us cook thatlight, fluffy toffee. 'cause
when you cook it at theelevation, anything you're
cooking, the elevation isboiling. Water period boils
(05:40):
faster. So the faster you boilwater, you faster you boil out
the moisture and the candy.
Mm-hmm. . Andlike I was telling you, that's
exactly the art of making candyis like the temp the the
temperature you cook to isgonna give you the result of
how much water you're cookingout. So the higher temp, the
less water leftover.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Did your grandfather realize that, that that was
part of what made his candy sospecial?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I, I don't know that for sure. I think he figured
out how long he had to cook ithere, but I don't know if he'd
ever been at sea level tryingto cook it. I don't know that.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
, what
else do you think makes the
toffee so good? What do youeat? A lot of it. Um ,
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I, I really don't.
, I , I , I have , Icatch myself having a bite here
or there. I find myself eatingthe ice cream more common than
not . Um, it's the biggestthing with our toffee again, is
the elevation and cooking itand it's light and fluffy. Most
people when they think oftoffee, they think of like a
Hershey's, or not a Hershey's,but a heath bar. Yeah . Or they
(06:39):
think of a English toffee andit's like, oh, this is in
England. Sometimes they giveyou your toffee like a hammer
joking around 'cause you needto break it. Uhhuh
. Right. So wedon't really, we, we claim ours
is like a soft, fluffy toffee.
And I think that's what wereally get away with. And we,
it takes people at least tryingour candy to know it's
something. 'cause people, a lotof people come off thinking
(07:00):
they don't like toffee. Right .
Until they try our toffee. Andthat's like our biggest selling
point is you get in someone'smouth. That's our biggest
selling .
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Absolutely. Because I take it when I travel, I take
it as gifts. Sometimes peoplesay I no , not a toffee,
phantom. Like, try it.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
That's like one that's , and that's been our
biggest thing is like, it'slike everyone's like, how do
you market your toffee? Andit's, what they say is, it's
like getting on the nationalcandy aisle. Right. We've done
that before. We had a , mybrother did a great job, did a
great sale, and we got intoWalgreens. We're like, oh my
gosh, we hit a home run hereand we made millions of dollars
worth of toffee and it went outto Walgreens and we thought we
(07:39):
were kicking some mass . Andthen here we go, we find out
there's two parts to makingthis cell once you get on the
shelf. That's one part. Secondpart's getting off the shelf.
So we got out there and people,I don't think people think they
like toffee until they try ourtoffee mm-hmm..
And we didn't get off theshelf, so we ended up having to
do a buyback. 'cause after ayear it's a perishable goods.
(08:01):
So we ended up buying back thetoffee from 'em because
Speaker 2 (08:03):
They're not gonna be giving samples. They , at
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Walgreens, they aren't . And so I think
we made maybe , uh, a smallamount of money, but we had to
buy back a bunch. So it was a ,not a , not a great success.
But whereas working withCostco, they do the sampling
program. Mm-hmm.. And that does a big deal of
justice for us once people getin their mouth and get a little
try of it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And talk a little bit about the Q V C uh, episode
that came here. That was prettycool. Well,
Speaker 3 (08:31):
That , yeah. We've been doing , my dad has been
the one you have to go throughtraining to get on there. And
my dad's been the one doingthat. And he's been doing shows
now, I wanna say six yearsmm-hmm . . And he
goes out there. And this one intown was a special show because
they've been going around todifferent , uh, states finding
these manufacturing , uh,plants, what they've been doing
business with. And they pickedus as one and they actually
(08:53):
came to our facility Yeah . Andshot the show there . It
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Was downtown here .
Down here.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah . And they were in the kitchen shooting it
there. And um , actually that'sone that I was on for a little
bit. Uhhuh .
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So you, you're used to being a star around
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Town . . I'm
trying . Usually I don't like
cameras and microphones, so I'mgetting, I'm getting better.
I'm learning. I'm gonna have todo it more. Yeah .
Speaker 2 (09:12):
But that was a huge success, wasn't it? Yeah . The
Q V C episode .
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Well just that one , that one was great, but just,
we've been growing and growingand we look at Q V C as this
opportunity. Yes. It's a mark .
Uh , we mark down the pricequite a bit. They require
anyone to be on there. They'reusing their name to sell your
product. But here we are.
That's what we want is peopleto who don't know who we are or
had our candy. Right . To getthat in their hand. Give it a
try. I mean, this is, you can'tpay for marketing and a
(09:37):
strategy like this. You , it'seven if we were giving away to
get that much candy to newpeople mm-hmm .
who haven't had our candy, who
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Are gonna continue to buy it year after year. Yeah
.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
That's , and that's what we've been seeing. Yeah .
Getting more and more.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And you all don't just make and sell toffee. You
have expanded your product linesignificantly over the years.
Talk about how that's changedover the years. How you went
from toffee and what was thenext step and love the ice
cream and then what's comingnext?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, so , um, my great-grandfather actually was
, he was a Jones Strom icecream that he had . So it's
kind of like this idea to bringback the old lore, family lore
of like, oh, we used to do icecream. So we started doing ice
cream, I mean, maybe 20 yearsago mm-hmm . and
which that's my favorite thing.
I catch myself eating that. Weuse a really high fat , uh,
butter or , uh, fat pre-mixedcontent mm-hmm .
(10:26):
to make the ice cream. Um,really love that. And we just
make enough ice cream. We don'thave a machine big enough to
sell any of that online or dodirect to consumer. We just do
that for our , uh, local retailstores. Mm-hmm .
, we have one , um, two here inJunction. We just opened a new
, uh, little plug. We justopened a new Montrose store
today and it's
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Today. Oh, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yep . It's in the old Russell Stover , um, retail
store there, which we're , uh,sharing the location with home
loan, but going off topic therea little bit. But then our
other products , um, they'renot necessarily very many of
'em are new. Um, mygreat-grandfather really like
making truffles and we still dolike the artisan things making
, uh, handmade candy canes.
Mm-hmm . , whichyou'll have to come . I that's
(11:08):
will give you a tour. You haveto come see our operation. I
would love that. But we stilldo the artisan handmade candy
canes where you hand rollmm-hmm . and then
you throw it on a hook and youstretch out the candy and it
means , it's hard to explain.
You gotta come see it. Butwe're hand crooking them and
everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And so , uh, I really like the , um, the sugar
free mm-hmm .candies that you have too. They
taste delicious.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah . I mean, we do a minimal amount of those
again, just for our retailstores, but they're made with ,
uh, malitol in which if you, ifyou look online by I was
telling you about the hair ,about gummy bears, that's a ,
that's a funny thing. Don't eattoo much sugar free candy. I'll
get you . But
Speaker 2 (11:47):
uhhuh little
bit here and there, there and
there. Better to just go withthe sugar most of the time.
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well , I mean, there's diabetic people and
some people can't handle sugar.
Yeah . But we do have thatoption. Mm-hmm .
a few , a few things we do.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And, and your retail stores are a , a really great
place to shop for so manythings. I mean, obviously you
can go in and get a coffeemm-hmm. , which
is great ice cream chocolate,but you've got a tea selections
and gifts and it's a greatplace to go in the holidays no
matter what holiday it is.
'cause you have somethingthemed around the holidays.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Absolutely. That's what , that's something we
brought in the ice cream, thetea, the coffee. But it's just
something like, hey, we , weare a seasonal , like candy is
seasonal. I mean, we do, like ,it used to be we like 90% of
our business during theholidays. It's all mail order
people coming in and buying ourcandy. But that's why we
started doing coffee and icecream. And it gives people a
reason to come in for aneveryday thing to have. And
(12:38):
then maybe they'd impulse buysome candy, which we saw it
happening here and there.
Mm-hmm. for
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Sure. I bet it's, I bet it's grown quite a bit
though. Go ahead . Definitelyhas . As people have gotten
used to,
Speaker 3 (12:48):
When we run our different plugs, we have the, I
dunno if you heard of ourfourth of , or the July. We
started the 4th of July. But welet kids come in and if they
recite the pre the Pledge ofAllegiance, we give you a cup
of ice cream.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's great. Great.
So you're on more thanmanufacturing side than
anything else. How has theprocess of making the toffee
and the candies changed? Andhow has technology changed what
you do See?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
That , that's what I've really found a huge
interest in. Um, this all cameabout. My dad has had a vision
from when he take, took overthe company , um, back when he
started working there. Um,everything is, we call it a
batch cooked or kettle cut cookyou pour in the kettle, make
your ingredients. Once it'scooked, you pour the kettle
(13:34):
out, you have to start theprocess all the way over. Start
cooking takes whatever, 30minutes to make another batch.
He had a vision, he wanted it,have a continuous cook system,
meaning once you get it going,toffee just keeps coming out
continuously. Mm-hmm .
. And he threwout friends in the industry
through the NationalConfections Association. He met
some guys who introduced himthrough , uh, this Dutch family
(13:57):
who are now a good , goodfamily friends with the tus
family . Um, he flew out therewith a kettle and all the
ingredients that we make ourtoffee with and showed him our
process and what these guysare, they're , um, um, um,
confectionary engineers. Sothey'll see a process and
(14:18):
they'll streamline it Uhhuh to where you
don't have to batch cook it.
And he, my dad went out thereand showed him . And a year
later he's like, well , I thinkwe figured it out. And it took
a year because they kept on,like I was telling you earlier,
they wanted to have us add cornsyrup. It makes making
everything easier. We're like,my dad's like, we're not, we're
only gonna do this if we keepthe exact same recipe. Mm-hmm .
(14:40):
. And anyways, ayear later he calls my dad and
he's like, do you wanna dothis? And he's like, let's,
let's , let's go for it. Let'stry it. Yeah . And it wasn't a
cheap venture. And they broughtdown the machine from the
Netherlands and it did not workright away . Mm-hmm .
It was not making the candy. Itwas supposed to, but how'd
Speaker 2 (14:56):
They get it here?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Um , by , by sea freight. Uhhuh .
And when you come down and seeit, it's, it's a big line . And
it makes about a thousandpounds of Tafi an hour.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
A thousand pounds an hour.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
But the , but the thing is, my dad became really
good friends with the ownerthat's coming . Leo Tannis ,
because he , there was aprocess there that wasn't
working, but he and my dad overlike six to eight months of
making bad it out candy productfigured it out. Mm-hmm.
,
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Can you describe what the change was?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Um, it was , they needed , it was just
temperatures. And was , this isall something they've never
done before. So, but when ,when you come look at the
facility, it's a big , um,stainless steel coil. It's
about 127 feet and it'sprobably maybe three inches in
diameter coiled up. And it's ina big , um, cast iron tank. And
(15:45):
it gets hot. We have a boiler.
You have hot steam and pressureput on it, and it slowly goes
up. And if you don't get itcooked right, it comes out slop
and then it goes into anothercooking process. It's a , a oil
jacked screw, two cookingscrews. Um , it's hard to
explain without yousaying it. Yeah . But they ,
they finally, they , they rerelent relentless and figured ,
(16:06):
eventually figured it out.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And so when you go down to the retail store and
watch the people cooking, howmuch are they making in there?
And how , how , what percentageof your
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Process is going on there ? So we call that , we
call that our traditionaltoffee. And that's the handmade
toffee, which has to berefrigerated or frozen. Mm-hmm
. . And westarted ac we started actually
making that in May and freezingit for Christmas. And I wanna
say that is about a third ofall of the candy we make
(16:41):
because we have , we have twodifferent sides of the
business. We have a retail andour wholesale mm-hmm .
, when I sayretail, that's anything in our
retail source or our direct toconsumer from our website to a
customer. When I say wholesale,it's like a Costco or a Q V C
or there's some other companiesthat we sell with them NDAs
that can't say , butthose are under, we make the
toffee and it goes to someoneelse and they sell it. Um, but
(17:04):
we make about 3 million. Lastyear we made about 3 million
pounds of toffee and about, wedo about half and half retail
and wholesale. Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And so the, the handmade stuff in that you see
being made on site therethrough the windows, how is
that different from what themachine is doing?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So it's the exact same ingredients. When you see
the handmade stuff, it'sslabbed out. Mm-hmm .
. Right. And thenthey cut into bigger , um,
chunks and they take that andthen they take it back and it's
hand broken and packed inboxes. Mm-hmm . ,
the stuff on the toffee line ispulled , poured out on a
stainless steel belt, probablymaybe a foot and a half wide.
And that goes down a longprocess of cooling. And then
(17:45):
it's actually slit into alittle one and a half inch slit
, uh, strips. And then that'schopped into little , uh, one
and a half inch by one and ahalf squares. And we call those
petites. And what happens isthey get fully enrobed in
chocolate. Yeah. Yeah . Thanksfor leading this on. This is
good. Um, we've found out , uh,down the road throughout doing
this, if you completely enro apiece of toffee in chocolate,
(18:09):
the cocoa fat acts as a greatbarrier keeping the oxygen out
of the toffee. Mm-hmm .
, because , uh,what happens is oxygen gets
into the butter fats andoxidized butterfat is rancid
fat.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And so that's why our , that's , that's where our
hand broken toffee, where thesides are exposed, it has to be
frozen. Right. So when wecompletely enroll in chocolate,
the cocoa fat is acting as abarrier, keeping oxygen out.
And we actually get a yearshelf life. So that's what's
opened us up in this wholesaleworld where we can have it on
the shelf without it beingfrozen. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And do you still have a period of the year where
you don't ship? I think I wasreading something about that.
We , we
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Are right now. But you you better order
quite a bit of toffee. 'causeit's probably you're gonna
spend a 15, 20 bucks to ship a$30 box of toffee. Uhhuh
. It's definitelymakes it hard.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And you keep, you have a big freezer system
mm-hmm . to keepall this
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Absolutely
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Toffee frozen.
That's what it's all about. Howmany boxes are you have frozen
at a time. I mean, I , I'm ,I'm imagining like my eyes,
Speaker 3 (19:10):
It's a ton. That's why , like , that's why I
figured out there's years.
That's why my dad took thisbusiness to the next level, is
that I understand why he wasstressed out, come the
holidays. 'cause he would makea decision how much toffee,
TOFFEE's gonna make compared tothe last year. Right . And we
kept growing. We don't wannarun , run out, and you're
making a perishable good. Butwe can't make all the toffee
we're gonna sell duringChristmas in a couple weeks.
(19:32):
Mm-hmm . , like Isaid, we started making toffee
in April, freezing it, gettingready to sell for the fourth
quarter in the Christmas rush.
'cause when we're busy in our ,in our mail room, FedEx will
come and park a coupletrailers. In our busy days,
we'll be sending out 30,000boxes in , in day day , a day
in , in a , on our , our fewbusiest days. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's amazing. Wow.
And you do some , uh, you shipoverseas mm-hmm.
for , um, service members forfree. We do .
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Is that right? We , yeah, we do that. Great . No ,
no shipping charge. That's try, try to do the small things.
Yeah. And we , we try to likeevery once in a while we will.
No one's perfect. We dooverproduce here and there. And
it , and it's not like my dadsays, we're not manufacturing
flashlights. You can't sell 'emnext year. So when we , we do
try to give back , uh, some ofthe candy. We overproduce like
(20:22):
we've given it to D 51 a fewyears back when we overproduced
and we do try to ship , uh, abunch of candy overseas to our,
our , our , our men and womenout there protecting us. So
That's
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Awesome. Well , call me Doug if you have extras you
need to get rid of. I'll , I'lldrive down there. Um ,
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Hope you got a big truck..
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Uh , what's you , you talked about , um, that you
like the ice cream. Is that, isthat your, your favorite thing
there? Do you have otherfavorites?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I , I
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Do You have a favorite flavor?
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I like turtles. I like caramel. And I like, I do
, don't get me wrong, I do liketoffee, but I don't know . I ,
I eat that seldom compared toeverything else. But the ice
cream. My favorite ice cream isthe cookie dough. And it's
just, it's just when I get donewith lunch and I'm coming back
and I'm checking on my retailfolks, that , that's the one
thing that tempts me. I don'tget a cup. I'll just get one
little plastic spoon and I'llhave, every day I'll have one
(21:13):
, one little scoop, onelittle , uh, spoon scoop.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
The advantage of being a ice cream store owner.
. Yeah . Um, so what doyou see for the next 10 years
in this business?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Well, right now our biggest problem is running
outta space. If like, once youcome and visit, you'll see
we're on top of ourselves.
Mm-hmm . and wewe're running outta warehouse
space. We're actually, we'vebeen in the midst on and off
for the last three years oflooking at building expansion
facility and just with thebuild the cost of building you
(21:48):
being real estate. Mm-hmm .
understand thishas been going up and up and we
don't know if it's gonna comeback down. But we, we had built
out a plan for a whole newplant and facility and we were
gonna do it and looked at theprices like, we don't wanna
build this one . It's the peakof how expensive everything is
right now. So right now, we'recurrently, we're actually, my
dad and I yesterday went andlooked at a piece of property
(22:09):
that there's a warehouse forsale . It's about 18,000 square
feet that we're gonna bepurchasing here, it looks like
just for some, some offsite ,uh mm-hmm . , uh,
storage that we really need.
But currently we are working onplans to , uh, build a whole
new facility out on 28 Road,which is , uh, we're way
overdue. Mm-hmm.not only for , not only for for
(22:30):
production reasons, but forwarehousing. I have some great
warehousing guys that they'reon top of each other and it's
like playing Legos with uh ,pallets. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I bet. And so what do you envision happening with
the facility downtown?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Uh , we don't know right away. Um, we'd love to,
we we're definitely gonna keepour retail store there 'cause
that the retail store's beenthere since 19 6, 19 60, since
inception. So we keep thatthere. But , uh, I think our
vision now it's downtown doesnot need a manufacturing
(23:02):
facility right there. And Ithink there could be anywhere
from housing to a restaurant ontop to retail on the bottom.
But I think that corner rightthere has some way cooler uses.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
It is a great location. It's really nice to
be able to walk there and getice cream and everything you
need. Um, I know fromexperience , uh, talking to
people that your company is areally great place to work.
Talk about a , as a leader ofthe company, how you treat your
(23:32):
employees and how importantthat is to you.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Absolutely. I think , I don't wanna throw
my dad under the bus here, butI think my management style is
way different than my dad's.
Um, he's a little more vocal.
Um, I've been in, I've been inthe toffee kitchen. When he
gets upset with everyone,something goes wrong. He'll ,
he's gonna let you know, he's definitely gonna let you
know. Um, I'm, I'm more, I'mvery quiet. You'll know if I'm
(23:58):
upset with you. I don't, Idon't have to say very much. I,
I demand everyone's respect andif, if I'm upset, you're gonna
know. I'll make, it's more likeshame than, than being
aggressive and yelling atsomeone. But for the most part,
we have very respectfulemployees. We've created a
workplace that people reallywant to work at. Mm-hmm .
. And I think alot of the ways, how this has
(24:20):
happened, we have really goodlongevity and we have really
good leaders. And it just showswhen we have new people coming
to work and they see peoplethat have been there for, I
mean, anywhere from there . Wehave employees that have been
there for 40 plus years. Um, Imean, Karen in the retail
store, I don't know if you mether, she's been working there
before. My parents, KarenCompton. Wow . And I mean, but
(24:40):
it , we do have a lot of peoplebeen there 18, 25, 30, all up
to four years. People see themlike , Hey, this is a great
place to work. Mm-hmm.
. And we , we ,and if we want to treat our
employees great, great benefitsand , uh, 4 0 1 k matches. And
, and it , getting into that,it's , it is been getting this
one . That's one of thetoughest things we've been
seeing is with growth. And Idon't know if after the
(25:03):
pandemic it's been hard to keepemployees. The turnover has
been really fast and we've beengrowing. Um, this is the first
year that I'm gonna be having ,um, we've been running two
shifts downtown , um, two eighthour shifts since April. And
that's, that's not the , thetoffee kitchen itself is one
shift, but I'm talking aboutthe toffee line. Mm-hmm .
and the main ,uh, continuous cook process. So
(25:26):
we would have that thingrunning 16 hours a day. And
right now we have, with a fewDenver retail stores, we have ,
uh, just over 200 employeeswith , uh, 120 of those fully
benefited with 4 0 1 K match.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That's great. And how many employees do you hire
seasonally? When you're busy?
How many do you feel like youhave to bring on? So
Speaker 3 (25:49):
That's, that's a great point. 'cause that's what
it used to be. Back when my dadwas doing it, they'd literally
hire people. And some peoplelike to work half a year and
then be home with their kidsduring the summer, whatnot. But
it , we'd hire people in April,get ready to make candy, but
come January, you knew you wereseasonal and you got laid off.
Nowadays we are working waypast that and doing this
(26:11):
wholesale stuff beyond to beingthe Costcos and the QVCs and
some other o other big boxstores where we're able to cook
year round . And we're, we're ,I'm , we have very few seasonal
employees now. I mean, some onthe retail side,
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Retail side mean you have to have more for the
shifts and the retail side,right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Well, and it just , it is , we, we ramp up quite a
bit during the holidays mm-hmm.
. So that's whyI'm saying that's seasonal. But
as far as making the toffee,we're hiring people on. And
even when we're not gonna bemaking, we don't make handmade
toffee year round . 'cause wemake it from April to December
and fire back up here and therefor a couple weeks at a time.
(26:49):
Mm-hmm . . But we, we , we have between, we have
10 ga 10 people in the coffeekitchen making it and about 20
people packing it. And that's30 people that were able to
keep on full-time. They used toget laid off in January and we
had find different odd ends forthem to do, which is , which
is, that keeps , keeps thingsway easier for everyone. Having
them , for them to be aworrying and also just keep
(27:10):
people on mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
. And ,
um, tell us about your
partnership with Strive
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Strive. Oh, yes. My brother does that. Um, my
brother's actually on the boardfor Strive. Um, it's just , um,
we , uh, have an opportunityto, I'm trying to think, gimme
a second. We, oh, we do our ,um, gift pack boxes mm-hmm .
, so it's a boxwith like a one pound box of
toffee and like two popcornsand a turtle. And it's like
(27:36):
these little cutout boxes. Andwe have , um, these, I don't ,
they search , they are specialneeds. A group of people that
come in and they're actuallyreally hard workers and we get
'em in line and each person hasa role of just putting one
thing in the box and we'll setup an assembly line and they
get in there and do it. Andthey, they , they come in
smiles on their faces. Yeah .
It's , it's , it's fun to see.
(27:57):
Is
Speaker 2 (27:57):
This a year-round position for those folks ?
Speaker 3 (27:59):
No, that is not, that is just during the
holidays. Uhhuhand they come in, I think it's
just one month they come in, Ithink they wake work, they work
a shorter shift and it's likefour days a week.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Who do you think is your, who's your biggest
competition in the, in thetoffee world ? This is ,
Speaker 3 (28:14):
This is the weirdest thing. Everyone thinks that
it's gonna be another candycompany and it's not. I mean,
there's no one out there. I'mnot , I'm not really, I'm being
try to be humble, but there'sno one out there that does a
full butter toffee without cornsyrup like we do. Mm-hmm .
, like you'll ,there's, there's a few people
doing it. I mean, but theredon't, there's a lot of people
putting corn syrup and it's ,it's just a different product.
(28:35):
Mm-hmm . . Andeven out there, there's enough,
there's enough room for both ofus. But the biggest competitors
we have out there in , in thewholesale world, and actually
direct consumer is, if you goon the website , uh, go on the
internet, there's so manypeople out there selling
different odds and ends thatdoesn't matter during the
holidays. Like, you Google onething, you're gonna see five
(28:56):
other competition things comeup like different baskets like
Sherry berries and , uh,1-800-FLOWERS. Everyone has a
presence and people nowadayswant to give something
different every year for theholidays. So it's, it's our ,
our competition is keeping thetradition. That's what
instrument's always been, ispeople passing down the
(29:17):
tradition and sending candy totheir families year after year.
Mm-hmm . . Andthat , that it's , it's getting
more, it's more and moredifficult because it used to
be, we didn't have a , like aton of com uh , competition. We
had a , we had a website beforeAmazon as a company. .
Now you now you now you get onthe internet. Wow . It's like
people get so distracted andthey see one thing is , oh ,
that might be cool this year,but it's like people sending, I
(29:40):
know a box of fish or , I mean,like, there's so many different
things out there that you cansend during the holidays as a
gift. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Well I think , um, there's a real sense of pride
in this community about havingyou all here and, and making
this great product that'sshipped around the world. I
think it's so cool. And I knowa lot of people are super proud
of it.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yes, we do. And like , sometimes we still do some
marketing and advertisementhere, but I think for the most
part we're really well known .
We like to get out there, welike to give back to this
community. I think that that'sa big thing for us is making
sure that our community'sstrong. I'm a big believer in
that. But our , we spend mostof our marketing dollars away
(30:20):
from the community here. 'causepeople really do already know
who we are. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I'm glad you touched on giving back to the
community. 'cause I know youand I had a conversation
recently about you realize thatit's great that you provide
jobs and you have this companythat , uh, helps with the
economy. But until youpersonally started giving back
to the community , uh, youdidn't realize what an impact
you could have.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Well, it's just , uh, seeingwhat my parents have done. It's
like, and I see the joy itbrings them and it's just
something I wanted to getinvolved with and start doing.
And I've, I've been on the HopeWest Next Gen Board. I'm
currently on the D 51Foundation board and I've, I've
really enjoyed, I've been onthe , uh, D D A and the , the
(31:08):
bid,
Speaker 2 (31:08):
The downtown Development Authority Downtown
. Downtown
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Downtown Development Authority mm-hmm.
. And that's been , that's beena blast. Um, I really have
enjoyed that. Just seeing inthe past, I've been on that
board for seven years now, justseeing from when I moved back
here, what Grand Junction wasdoing to what we're doing now
mm-hmm . ,especially in the development
area. Um, it's just beenamazing to see the strides
(31:32):
we've been taking 'cause of thedda, what we we're going out to
R F P , just trying to havesomeone look at us for a small
project. Now we're able toreally sit back and decide who
we're gonna give our money to,to help incentivize to do
different projects.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That's great. That's great. So how do you have time
for all this ?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
We make time. You know how it is . Yeah . We , we
all make time. I mean, andthat's the thing is people, all
these different boards, I meanhere and there, they do require
a little bit more time. But you, it's, you'd be surprised.
People think it's a lot, butyou can get out there and get
back without having to take waytoo much time, I think. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
, and I
know you all do a lot of , uh,
philanthropy and all kinds ofgiving in this community from
the company
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Abs. Absolutely.
That's , uh, my mom's mainrole. That's pretty much all
she does is she keeps a , a , aspreadsheet of who we give to
every year. And she's in chargeof making sure we do a good job
of taking care of everyone. And'cause you know how it is, once
you like start at , like , onceyou start giving, they'll come
back and ask again. Mm-hmm.
and especiallythey're on other boards as
(32:40):
well, , when they'reout asking people Yeah . For
help on donations, as soon asyou ask you're , they're gonna
come right back and ask you.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Well, I love it because I, I made an ask , uh,
for the theater program atPalisade High School, and I
love that. Uh , like I calledthe company and they said, you
gotta talk to Jamie and , uh,she'll get back to you. I mean,
it was like, oh, I'm going tothe boss. Yeah. Right .
Speaker 3 (33:05):
That's , that's how , that's how it is . My mom's
big thing at the company is'cause we get a lot of
different school stuff like,you know , cheerleading or
sports or, and then we have abunch of fours. My mom's big
thing is she's still oldschool. If you shoot her an
email, she's , she'll respondto , it's like, I want you to
come in and talk to me. Mm-hmm. , she's not
gonna let you do it the phonecall . So yeah. It's like, Hey,
if you come down and you showyour face, you and she , she
(33:27):
pretty much, if you come downand show your face, she's not
gonna turn you down.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And it's so important for kids, especially
to , to learn that skill.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
It's a great learning opportunity. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
. Um,
talk a little bit about C B D
and, and what you've done inthat realm.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Okay . Um, so just being in the candy industry,
we'd go to different tradeshows and we'd run into our
friends and different people.
And with Colorado being one ofthe first to , to legalize
marijuana , um, everyone wasasking, you're Colorado, are
you doing that? Right. And it'snot, it wasn't necessarily
something we wanted to ventureout with until I started, I
(34:04):
started doing a bunch ofresearch and if you do
marijuana, you're, you'rereally held back to, only in
Colorado you start making amarijuana product. This is, if
you get licensing, you make amarijuana product, you aren't
allowed to make anything else.
Like you couldn't make aregular gummy, you couldn't
make a nutraceutical gummy.
You're just li strictly limitedto making a marijuana t h c
(34:25):
product. So I looked at thatand actually I sat down, my dad
and I sat down and had beentalking with city council
members and we were about toget a license to do that. And I
ended up not doing it. And whenyou bring up C B D, we went
with C B D 'cause the farm billhad just passed. This was
probably 2017, 2018. And with CB D, with the farm bill
passing, you could, it could goany state. So it weren't held
(34:47):
down to just Colorado. Mm-hmm .
. So that kind ofopened up the doors and back to
the Tana family, the guys thatmade our continuous cook
Speaker 2 (34:55):
From the Netherlands.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
From the Netherlands , um, my , the , the crazy
Dutch guys , um,they're actually, that's what
they specialized in. So theymake all the big machines for
Jelly Belly and they're reallygood at making all these
different , um, gummy machines.
And they, they actually made anew company. Their two sons,
actually their three sons , uh,made a new company as we
ventured off and made hybridconfections, my brother and dad
(35:17):
and myself , um, they madeanother company called O T C
over the counter , um,machines. We ended up making a
, they made , they made a gummymachine where you can infuse C
B, D or any other active, andwe started doing C B D and it
actually took off and is doinggreat for about two years. And
then C B D just died aseveryone's seen. It was a huge
(35:39):
craze and it's just no longer athing. So we had to switch
gears. And now this companywhere we found out a little a
niche , um, doing, it's callednutraceutical gummies. It's
anything below apharmaceutical, so an apple
cider vent or gummies,ashwagandha, melatonin,
anything from mushrooms, thelegal kind of mushrooms, not ,
(36:00):
not the fun ones. Um, but we'vereally changed gears and
getting in doing that, we'redoing 'em for Sprouts and a
little bit with Vitamin Shop .
Um, but it , it's been , it'sbeen, it's been a huge learning
experience transitioning fromthe C B D to this nutraceutical
world. Mm-hmm. .
Because if , I mean , if you goto the grocery store, I'm sure
you've seen all the different ,um, gummy Yeah . Supplements
(36:22):
that you can get. Yeah .
Anywhere from vitamin C tosleep gummies to heartburn to
collagen to,
Speaker 2 (36:29):
And so that is, that's something you're hoping
to expand going forward? Imean,
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I mean that's what we've Oh , expand that company.
Yeah . Um, we are, we'recurrently expanding there right
now. There'll be a new buildinggoing up there and , but it
should be built by December.
That's more for warehousing,not production. Mm-hmm.
,
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Are those produced in the downtown facility now?
Nope .
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Those an offsite facility. It's right there. Um,
it's unmarked. It's right thereright across from north of the
, uh, uh, fire departmentthere. I'll take you down
there. You can check it out.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Gosh, I'm gonna get the whole tour. I ,
Speaker 3 (37:02):
I'm really excited.
Yeah . If we get rock in thatgummy line, we can make about
600,000 gummies in five days.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Wow. Cool. So you go to trade shows and learn new
techniques all the time.
Connect with other candymakers.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
It's , I , um, so my brother does a lot more of the
trade sales , uh, shows. 'causethey're a lot of sales. I go to
one or two a year. Um , andit's not necessarily more new
techniques. Um , we're nottrying to reinvent the wheel .
I think my dad ventured out andtried to make a lot of
different candies and we foundTOFFEE's our go-to mm-hmm .
, I've been kindof take , I'm the guy that's
been taking more and more skewsaway. I think you can get
(37:39):
people distracted. I think ifyou're good at one thing, you
just stick with it and reallydrive it home. Mm-hmm .
. And we've beenseeing a lot of success with
that. But going to the tradeshows, it's real, my , my dad
calls it fog in the mirror.
It's like, you , you gotta behere. Um , I'm not poo-pooing
'em , but sometimes we don'tget a ton out of 'em . But I
mean, if you're, if you're outthere selling and Costco's
(38:00):
walking around and they don'tsee out there like, oh, where's
Strom ? Mm-hmm. .
But I mean, we , we go to thesetrade shows where we are, we're
a little guy out there comparedto the Mars, the Jelly Bellies
and the Hershey's the
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Right. But so much better. So much better.
. Thank you. Yeah. Uh , well,Doug, is there anything else
that you would like to sharewith us , uh, about Grand
Junction or the company or ,um, yeah, speak to our
listeners.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
No, I'm just, I, my dad, his goal, my dad's goal
was to create a business. Tohave his sons want to come back
and not only be big enough butto want to work for, and my
brother and I both went toDenver University and I
graduated , um, with generalbusiness degree. And I wasn't
(38:49):
sure I was gonna come backright away, but I graduated in
2008 and that was a time a lotof people were laying off more
than their hiring. And I'd gonethrough quite a few
interviewing processes, but,and I was , I just realized I
wanted to come back and startedworking here in Grand Junction.
And right when I came back Iwas like leaving Denver. And
Denver at that time was theplace to be. Mm-hmm.
(39:10):
. So it wasreally hard for me . And I
think I was probably, this is2010, so I was in my twenties
and in your twenties you wantto be in Denver. All the , you
got all the sports teams ,everything fun was going on and
through between now and then,it just, this, see, the
difference in Grand Junction isjust mind blowing . It's
(39:31):
actually fun. It was still fun,but it's act it's a lot more
fun now to see all the successwe're having, all the new
development, the people'sinterest into wanting to come
here, what the university'sdoing. Um , I mean, you're ,
you're involved with the realestate. I mean, it's just night
and day, what it was , what itwas 15 years ago.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
It is. And I think instrument is a big part of
that. So I think when peoplesee a nationally recognized
company having as much successas you do, it's inspiring and
say, if they can do it here, socan I. So
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Thank you. Yeah. I think a lot, a lot of it has to
do with, I think I'm glad wepassed the bond for the new
school. I think that's be ahuge thing. Um, with , with
that one in the past , I don'tknow what would happen, but
that's really one of the bigdrivers to get these bigger
businesses coming out here thatthey want to have a place where
their , their kids can get agood education in the hospital.
And I mean, we got the reccenter passed . I think that
(40:23):
was big. I I I just think we'refinally on a trend here , um,
with our, our, our people herevoting. Yes. I think we had a
long streak there whereeveryone was afraid of change.
Yeah . And they didn't want tovote any of these new tax
increases. And , and I think, I, I don't think I know that
this happening. There's gonnabe a huge uptick in everything.
(40:46):
I hope people will see that wecan keep on that trend. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I agree. So if people want to order online ,
uh, strom.com ,
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Strom.com
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And um, yeah. Go order online or go down to the
store and you can have stuffshipped all around the world
and
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Come , come down and see us. We free , I will
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Free looking forward to a tour free
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Example and I , I owe you a tour and come , come
see what we do. It's , I'd loveit. It's , it's pretty
remarkable.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Alright . Thank you very much for joining us today,
Doug. Uh , it's been apleasure. All right .
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Thanks for having me .
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Thanks everybody for tuning in to the Full Circle
podcast. Thanks to Doug SimmonsJr . Uh , and , uh, patronize
Strom , please. Great company,great product. And we'll see
you next time on the fullcircle. Thanks for listening.
This is Kristy Reese signingout from the Full Circle
Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The Full Circle podcast, compelling interviews
and incredible tales fromColorado's Western Slope, from
the mountains to the desert.
Christy Reese and her team herefrom the Movers Shakers, and
characters of the Grand Valleyand surrounding mountain towns
that make the Western slope theplace we all love. You'll
learn, you'll laugh, you'lllove with the full circle. Hi
everyone. Kristy Reese here.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the Full Circlepodcast. I'm really excited
today to welcome our guest,Doug Simmons, Jr . From Strom
Candies. Strom , not Stroms,right?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Strom Candies .
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Right . Strom Candies. Um, thanks for joining
us, Doug.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I've been really excited to get to know you
better and , um, excited tolearn more about your company.
And first of all, let me say Ilove Strom Toffee. I mean, I
could eat
here at our office, so there'salways some in our
refrigerator. And so when, aswe as realtors don't get to eat
lunch sometimes, that's allwe're eating all day
(01:02):
And it is really nutritious anddelicious.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Appreciate it . You got some protein in there.
Yeah, it's made with love. Nocalories.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
No calories. Thanks for that. Now I can eat more .
Um, gosh, where do we start? Soyour current , uh, title is
Vice President of Manufacturingand you're co-owner with your
brother, Jim. That's
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You have taken over running the company from your
folks?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
We have. I , my , my brother and I still currently
share an office with my dad,Uhhuh . So he's in there. He's
in there most days, but I'd sayfour days a week. Okay . We're
slowly pushing him out, butUhhuh , but he's still fully
hands-on. He likes to stay . Hewants to see us doing
everything, but he definitelystill has his say when he wants
to.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So when he married your mom, 'cause your mom is
Strom , um, did he get into thecompany right away? Did he have
a love for what they weredoing? He,
Speaker 3 (01:58):
He did. He started working at some odd jobs. They
, his first job that made himclean up, I guess they call it
the slop on the floor after you, after you cook for a while
with butter, just the butter,the fumes and , and air and
everything, sorry , collecting.
And he's the one that was inthere doing the dirty work,
cleaning that up. And then heeventually got into making the
handmade toffee. Um, but thenhe did end up marrying my
(02:21):
mother and they were workingtoge together there for a while
. And it came to a point whenmy grandparents Amal and Mary
Strom had asked , uh, my mom'stwo brothers, Rick and Bill, if
they want , had any interest.
And at that time they didn't.
And then they asked my parentsif they did, and like, Hey,
we're, we're very interested.
(02:41):
So they ended up buying thecompany from Mary and Amal
Strom ,
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Your brother , uh, uncles kind of kicking
themselves later down the road.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
They , they were a little bit here and there. My
uncle Bill was a farmer and hewent out to Kansas and helped
run farm equipment and kind ofliked doing that. He never
really wanted to come back.
Yeah. Um , my uncle Rick and myAunt Linda, actually, as soon
as we started opening stores inDenver, don't mark me on this,
but I think it was the earlynineties that we opened a store
(03:11):
in Cherry Creek. Mm-hmm.
still manage the stores outthere. And oh , wonder ,
actually just last year, mycousin Brendan just, he's
moving in, he's gonna startmanaging 'em . And my aunt and
Uncle Rick are kind , uh,moving their way out.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Awesome. So it's a real family affair. It is .
'cause you're fourth generationYeah . In the business, right?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yep . My mom's grandfather, my
great-grandfather started in1960
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Mm-hmm.
that kind of a hobby.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That's , that's exactly what he said . He used
to say, he is like, I'm justhere making candy for a few of
my friends. Uhhuh
bit more than that now. Butyeah,
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I love thinking about what it was like in Grand
Junction during those years andhow word got out. You know, we
didn't have social media andall that kind of stuff, so yeah
.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It , it , it was more or less a hobby for him
when he started doing it. Um,he actually, it was back when
people were rationing theirsugar and whatnot. And then he
had people that rationing it ,giving him , giving him sugar.
And he'd be just making it as ahobby. And he'd give it to a
few , few friends here andthere and like, man, you , you
should really , you could takethis somewhere and be like,
(04:18):
before you know it, he startedmailing it to friends and
family in different states. Andbefore we knew it, he had a
mail order company. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
And did he perfect that recipe for the Almond
Toffee early on? Or was itsomething that you all have
continued to change or improve?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I , I think that's one of the major things. And
that's why my mom's stillaround. It's like, we do not
mess with the recipe. It's theexact same. A lot of companies
nowadays. You can see you oneday want to streamline things
and you can get way moreproduction out, get longer
shelf when you're , uh,tweaking the recipe, adding
corn syrup and different thingsthat you don't really want on
your label. We still have aclean , uh, label. It's got ,
(04:58):
uh, butter, sugar, almonds,chocolate water, and a little
bit of , uh, sunflower ethin asan emulsifier. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And we were talking earlier when you first got here
about , uh, secret, a secret tothe toffee and the recipe. But
you said there's no really nosecrets,
Speaker 3 (05:17):
No secret. We've always, it's been wide , like
right in the open, we have thewindow there. We don't hide the
ingredients. You see? Exactly.
If you wanna watch how muchwe're putting in, they see how
it's putting , they're puttingin. We'll even share the amount
we're putting if you want. Butit's really, the elevation is
what is helping us cook thatlight, fluffy toffee. 'cause
when you cook it at theelevation, anything you're
cooking, the elevation isboiling. Water period boils
(05:40):
faster. So the faster you boilwater, you faster you boil out
the moisture and the candy.
Mm-hmm.
exactly the art of making candyis like the temp the the
temperature you cook to isgonna give you the result of
how much water you're cookingout. So the higher temp, the
less water leftover.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Did your grandfather realize that, that that was
part of what made his candy sospecial?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I, I don't know that for sure. I think he figured
out how long he had to cook ithere, but I don't know if he'd
ever been at sea level tryingto cook it. I don't know that.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
toffee so good? What do youeat? A lot of it. Um ,
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I, I really don't.
or there. I find myself eatingthe ice cream more common than
not . Um, it's the biggestthing with our toffee again, is
the elevation and cooking itand it's light and fluffy. Most
people when they think oftoffee, they think of like a
Hershey's, or not a Hershey's,but a heath bar. Yeah . Or they
(06:39):
think of a English toffee andit's like, oh, this is in
England. Sometimes they giveyou your toffee like a hammer
joking around 'cause you needto break it. Uhhuh
is like a soft, fluffy toffee.
And I think that's what wereally get away with. And we,
it takes people at least tryingour candy to know it's
something. 'cause people, a lotof people come off thinking
(07:00):
they don't like toffee. Right .
Until they try our toffee. Andthat's like our biggest selling
point is you get in someone'smouth. That's our biggest
selling .
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Absolutely. Because I take it when I travel, I take
it as gifts. Sometimes peoplesay I no , not a toffee,
phantom. Like, try it.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
That's like one that's , and that's been our
biggest thing is like, it'slike everyone's like, how do
you market your toffee? Andit's, what they say is, it's
like getting on the nationalcandy aisle. Right. We've done
that before. We had a , mybrother did a great job, did a
great sale, and we got intoWalgreens. We're like, oh my
gosh, we hit a home run hereand we made millions of dollars
worth of toffee and it went outto Walgreens and we thought we
(07:39):
were kicking some mass . Andthen here we go, we find out
there's two parts to makingthis cell once you get on the
shelf. That's one part. Secondpart's getting off the shelf.
So we got out there and people,I don't think people think they
like toffee until they try ourtoffee mm-hmm.
And we didn't get off theshelf, so we ended up having to
do a buyback. 'cause after ayear it's a perishable goods.
(08:01):
So we ended up buying back thetoffee from 'em because
Speaker 2 (08:03):
They're not gonna be giving samples. They , at
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Walgreens, they aren't
we made maybe , uh, a smallamount of money, but we had to
buy back a bunch. So it was a ,not a , not a great success.
But whereas working withCostco, they do the sampling
program. Mm-hmm.
justice for us once people getin their mouth and get a little
try of it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And talk a little bit about the Q V C uh, episode
that came here. That was prettycool. Well,
Speaker 3 (08:31):
That , yeah. We've been doing , my dad has been
the one you have to go throughtraining to get on there. And
my dad's been the one doingthat. And he's been doing shows
now, I wanna say six yearsmm-hmm .
goes out there. And this one intown was a special show because
they've been going around todifferent , uh, states finding
these manufacturing , uh,plants, what they've been doing
business with. And they pickedus as one and they actually
(08:53):
came to our facility Yeah . Andshot the show there . It
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Was downtown here .
Down here.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah . And they were in the kitchen shooting it
there. And um , actually that'sone that I was on for a little
bit. Uhhuh
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So you, you're used to being a star around
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Town .
cameras and microphones, so I'mgetting, I'm getting better.
I'm learning. I'm gonna have todo it more. Yeah .
Speaker 2 (09:12):
But that was a huge success, wasn't it? Yeah . The
Q V C episode .
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Well just that one , that one was great, but just,
we've been growing and growingand we look at Q V C as this
opportunity. Yes. It's a mark .
Uh , we mark down the pricequite a bit. They require
anyone to be on there. They'reusing their name to sell your
product. But here we are.
That's what we want is peopleto who don't know who we are or
had our candy. Right . To getthat in their hand. Give it a
try. I mean, this is, you can'tpay for marketing and a
(09:37):
strategy like this. You , it'seven if we were giving away to
get that much candy to newpeople mm-hmm .
who haven't had our candy, who
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Are gonna continue to buy it year after year. Yeah
.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
That's , and that's what we've been seeing. Yeah .
Getting more and more.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And you all don't just make and sell toffee. You
have expanded your product linesignificantly over the years.
Talk about how that's changedover the years. How you went
from toffee and what was thenext step and love the ice
cream and then what's comingnext?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, so , um, my great-grandfather actually was
, he was a Jones Strom icecream that he had . So it's
kind of like this idea to bringback the old lore, family lore
of like, oh, we used to do icecream. So we started doing ice
cream, I mean, maybe 20 yearsago mm-hmm .
which that's my favorite thing.
I catch myself eating that. Weuse a really high fat , uh,
butter or , uh, fat pre-mixedcontent mm-hmm .
(10:26):
to make the ice cream. Um,really love that. And we just
make enough ice cream. We don'thave a machine big enough to
sell any of that online or dodirect to consumer. We just do
that for our , uh, local retailstores. Mm-hmm .
, we have one , um, two here inJunction. We just opened a new
, uh, little plug. We justopened a new Montrose store
today and it's
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Today. Oh, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yep . It's in the old Russell Stover , um, retail
store there, which we're , uh,sharing the location with home
loan, but going off topic therea little bit. But then our
other products , um, they'renot necessarily very many of
'em are new. Um, mygreat-grandfather really like
making truffles and we still dolike the artisan things making
, uh, handmade candy canes.
Mm-hmm .
(11:08):
will give you a tour. You haveto come see our operation. I
would love that. But we stilldo the artisan handmade candy
canes where you hand rollmm-hmm .
you throw it on a hook and youstretch out the candy and it
means , it's hard to explain.
You gotta come see it. Butwe're hand crooking them and
everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And so , uh, I really like the , um, the sugar
free mm-hmm .
taste delicious.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah . I mean, we do a minimal amount of those
again, just for our retailstores, but they're made with ,
uh, malitol in which if you, ifyou look online by I was
telling you about the hair ,about gummy bears, that's a ,
that's a funny thing. Don't eattoo much sugar free candy. I'll
get you . But
Speaker 2 (11:47):
there. Better to just go withthe sugar most of the time.
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well , I mean, there's diabetic people and
some people can't handle sugar.
Yeah . But we do have thatoption. Mm-hmm .
a few , a few things we do.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And, and your retail stores are a , a really great
place to shop for so manythings. I mean, obviously you
can go in and get a coffeemm-hmm.
is great ice cream chocolate,but you've got a tea selections
and gifts and it's a greatplace to go in the holidays no
matter what holiday it is.
'cause you have somethingthemed around the holidays.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Absolutely. That's what , that's something we
brought in the ice cream, thetea, the coffee. But it's just
something like, hey, we , weare a seasonal , like candy is
seasonal. I mean, we do, like ,it used to be we like 90% of
our business during theholidays. It's all mail order
people coming in and buying ourcandy. But that's why we
started doing coffee and icecream. And it gives people a
reason to come in for aneveryday thing to have. And
(12:38):
then maybe they'd impulse buysome candy, which we saw it
happening here and there.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Sure. I bet it's, I bet it's grown quite a bit
though. Go ahead . Definitelyhas . As people have gotten
used to,
Speaker 3 (12:48):
When we run our different plugs, we have the, I
dunno if you heard of ourfourth of , or the July. We
started the 4th of July. But welet kids come in and if they
recite the pre the Pledge ofAllegiance, we give you a cup
of ice cream.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's great. Great.
So you're on more thanmanufacturing side than
anything else. How has theprocess of making the toffee
and the candies changed? Andhow has technology changed what
you do See?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
That , that's what I've really found a huge
interest in. Um, this all cameabout. My dad has had a vision
from when he take, took overthe company , um, back when he
started working there. Um,everything is, we call it a
batch cooked or kettle cut cookyou pour in the kettle, make
your ingredients. Once it'scooked, you pour the kettle
(13:34):
out, you have to start theprocess all the way over. Start
cooking takes whatever, 30minutes to make another batch.
He had a vision, he wanted it,have a continuous cook system,
meaning once you get it going,toffee just keeps coming out
continuously. Mm-hmm .
through the NationalConfections Association. He met
some guys who introduced himthrough , uh, this Dutch family
(13:57):
who are now a good , goodfamily friends with the tus
family . Um, he flew out therewith a kettle and all the
ingredients that we make ourtoffee with and showed him our
process and what these guysare, they're , um, um, um,
confectionary engineers. Sothey'll see a process and
(14:18):
they'll streamline it Uhhuh
don't have to batch cook it.
And he, my dad went out thereand showed him . And a year
later he's like, well , I thinkwe figured it out. And it took
a year because they kept on,like I was telling you earlier,
they wanted to have us add cornsyrup. It makes making
everything easier. We're like,my dad's like, we're not, we're
only gonna do this if we keepthe exact same recipe. Mm-hmm .
(14:40):
he's like, do you wanna dothis? And he's like, let's,
let's , let's go for it. Let'stry it. Yeah . And it wasn't a
cheap venture. And they broughtdown the machine from the
Netherlands and it did not workright away
It was not making the candy. Itwas supposed to, but how'd
Speaker 2 (14:56):
They get it here?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Um , by , by sea freight. Uhhuh
And when you come down and seeit, it's, it's a big line . And
it makes about a thousandpounds of Tafi an hour.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
A thousand pounds an hour.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
But the , but the thing is, my dad became really
good friends with the ownerthat's coming . Leo Tannis ,
because he , there was aprocess there that wasn't
working, but he and my dad overlike six to eight months of
making bad it out candy productfigured it out. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Can you describe what the change was?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Um, it was , they needed , it was just
temperatures. And was , this isall something they've never
done before. So, but when ,when you come look at the
facility, it's a big , um,stainless steel coil. It's
about 127 feet and it'sprobably maybe three inches in
diameter coiled up. And it's ina big , um, cast iron tank. And
(15:45):
it gets hot. We have a boiler.
You have hot steam and pressureput on it, and it slowly goes
up. And if you don't get itcooked right, it comes out slop
and then it goes into anothercooking process. It's a , a oil
jacked screw, two cookingscrews. Um , it's hard to
explain
they finally, they , they rerelent relentless and figured ,
(16:06):
eventually figured it out.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And so when you go down to the retail store and
watch the people cooking, howmuch are they making in there?
And how , how , what percentageof your
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Process is going on there ? So we call that , we
call that our traditionaltoffee. And that's the handmade
toffee, which has to berefrigerated or frozen. Mm-hmm
.
making that in May and freezingit for Christmas. And I wanna
say that is about a third ofall of the candy we make
(16:41):
because we have , we have twodifferent sides of the
business. We have a retail andour wholesale mm-hmm .
retail source or our direct toconsumer from our website to a
customer. When I say wholesale,it's like a Costco or a Q V C
or there's some other companiesthat we sell with them NDAs
that can't say
toffee and it goes to someoneelse and they sell it. Um, but
(17:04):
we make about 3 million. Lastyear we made about 3 million
pounds of toffee and about, wedo about half and half retail
and wholesale. Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And so the, the handmade stuff in that you see
being made on site therethrough the windows, how is
that different from what themachine is doing?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So it's the exact same ingredients. When you see
the handmade stuff, it'sslabbed out. Mm-hmm .
chunks and they take that andthen they take it back and it's
hand broken and packed inboxes. Mm-hmm .
the stuff on the toffee line ispulled , poured out on a
stainless steel belt, probablymaybe a foot and a half wide.
And that goes down a longprocess of cooling. And then
(17:45):
it's actually slit into alittle one and a half inch slit
, uh, strips. And then that'schopped into little , uh, one
and a half inch by one and ahalf squares. And we call those
petites. And what happens isthey get fully enrobed in
chocolate. Yeah. Yeah . Thanksfor leading this on. This is
good. Um, we've found out , uh,down the road throughout doing
this, if you completely enro apiece of toffee in chocolate,
(18:09):
the cocoa fat acts as a greatbarrier keeping the oxygen out
of the toffee. Mm-hmm .
into the butter fats andoxidized butterfat is rancid
fat.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And so that's why our , that's , that's where our
hand broken toffee, where thesides are exposed, it has to be
frozen. Right. So when wecompletely enroll in chocolate,
the cocoa fat is acting as abarrier, keeping oxygen out.
And we actually get a yearshelf life. So that's what's
opened us up in this wholesaleworld where we can have it on
the shelf without it beingfrozen. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
And do you still have a period of the year where
you don't ship? I think I wasreading something about that.
We , we
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Are right now. But you
quite a bit of toffee. 'causeit's probably you're gonna
spend a 15, 20 bucks to ship a$30 box of toffee. Uhhuh
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And you keep, you have a big freezer system
mm-hmm .
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Absolutely
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Toffee frozen.
That's what it's all about. Howmany boxes are you have frozen
at a time. I mean, I , I'm ,I'm imagining like my eyes,
Speaker 3 (19:10):
It's a ton. That's why , like , that's why I
figured out there's years.
That's why my dad took thisbusiness to the next level, is
that I understand why he wasstressed out, come the
holidays. 'cause he would makea decision how much toffee,
TOFFEE's gonna make compared tothe last year. Right . And we
kept growing. We don't wannarun , run out, and you're
making a perishable good. Butwe can't make all the toffee
we're gonna sell duringChristmas in a couple weeks.
(19:32):
Mm-hmm .
in April, freezing it, gettingready to sell for the fourth
quarter in the Christmas rush.
'cause when we're busy in our ,in our mail room, FedEx will
come and park a coupletrailers. In our busy days,
we'll be sending out 30,000boxes in , in day day , a day
in , in a , on our , our fewbusiest days. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's amazing. Wow.
And you do some , uh, you shipoverseas mm-hmm.
for , um, service members forfree. We do .
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Is that right? We , yeah, we do that. Great . No ,
no shipping charge. That's try, try to do the small things.
Yeah. And we , we try to likeevery once in a while we will.
No one's perfect. We dooverproduce here and there. And
it , and it's not like my dadsays, we're not manufacturing
flashlights. You can't sell 'emnext year. So when we , we do
try to give back , uh, some ofthe candy. We overproduce like
(20:22):
we've given it to D 51 a fewyears back when we overproduced
and we do try to ship , uh, abunch of candy overseas to our,
our , our , our men and womenout there protecting us. So
That's
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Awesome. Well , call me Doug if you have extras you
need to get rid of. I'll , I'lldrive down there. Um ,
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Hope you got a big truck.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Uh , what's you , you talked about , um, that you
like the ice cream. Is that, isthat your, your favorite thing
there? Do you have otherfavorites?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I , I
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Do You have a favorite flavor?
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I like turtles. I like caramel. And I like, I do
, don't get me wrong, I do liketoffee, but I don't know . I ,
I eat that seldom compared toeverything else. But the ice
cream. My favorite ice cream isthe cookie dough. And it's
just, it's just when I get donewith lunch and I'm coming back
and I'm checking on my retailfolks, that , that's the one
thing that tempts me. I don'tget a cup. I'll just get one
little plastic spoon and I'llhave, every day I'll have one
(21:13):
Speaker 2 (21:16):
The advantage of being a ice cream store owner.
in this business?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Well, right now our biggest problem is running
outta space. If like, once youcome and visit, you'll see
we're on top of ourselves.
Mm-hmm .
space. We're actually, we'vebeen in the midst on and off
for the last three years oflooking at building expansion
facility and just with thebuild the cost of building you
(21:48):
being real estate. Mm-hmm .
don't know if it's gonna comeback down. But we, we had built
out a plan for a whole newplant and facility and we were
gonna do it and looked at theprices like, we don't wanna
build this one . It's the peakof how expensive everything is
right now. So right now, we'recurrently, we're actually, my
dad and I yesterday went andlooked at a piece of property
(22:09):
that there's a warehouse forsale . It's about 18,000 square
feet that we're gonna bepurchasing here, it looks like
just for some, some offsite ,uh mm-hmm .
storage that we really need.
But currently we are working onplans to , uh, build a whole
new facility out on 28 Road,which is , uh, we're way
overdue. Mm-hmm.
(22:30):
production reasons, but forwarehousing. I have some great
warehousing guys that they'reon top of each other and it's
like playing Legos with uh ,pallets. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I bet. And so what do you envision happening with
the facility downtown?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Uh , we don't know right away. Um, we'd love to,
we we're definitely gonna keepour retail store there 'cause
that the retail store's beenthere since 19 6, 19 60, since
inception. So we keep thatthere. But , uh, I think our
vision now it's downtown doesnot need a manufacturing
(23:02):
facility right there. And Ithink there could be anywhere
from housing to a restaurant ontop to retail on the bottom.
But I think that corner rightthere has some way cooler uses.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
It is a great location. It's really nice to
be able to walk there and getice cream and everything you
need. Um, I know fromexperience , uh, talking to
people that your company is areally great place to work.
Talk about a , as a leader ofthe company, how you treat your
(23:32):
employees and how importantthat is to you.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Absolutely. I think
my dad under the bus here, butI think my management style is
way different than my dad's.
Um, he's a little more vocal.
Um, I've been in, I've been inthe toffee kitchen. When he
gets upset with everyone,something goes wrong. He'll ,
he's gonna let you know
know. Um, I'm, I'm more, I'mvery quiet. You'll know if I'm
(23:58):
upset with you. I don't, Idon't have to say very much. I,
I demand everyone's respect andif, if I'm upset, you're gonna
know. I'll make, it's more likeshame than, than being
aggressive and yelling atsomeone. But for the most part,
we have very respectfulemployees. We've created a
workplace that people reallywant to work at. Mm-hmm .
(24:20):
happened, we have really goodlongevity and we have really
good leaders. And it just showswhen we have new people coming
to work and they see peoplethat have been there for, I
mean, anywhere from there . Wehave employees that have been
there for 40 plus years. Um, Imean, Karen in the retail
store, I don't know if you mether, she's been working there
before. My parents, KarenCompton. Wow . And I mean, but
(24:40):
it , we do have a lot of peoplebeen there 18, 25, 30, all up
to four years. People see themlike , Hey, this is a great
place to work. Mm-hmm.
employees great, great benefitsand , uh, 4 0 1 k matches. And
, and it , getting into that,it's , it is been getting this
one . That's one of thetoughest things we've been
seeing is with growth. And Idon't know if after the
(25:03):
pandemic it's been hard to keepemployees. The turnover has
been really fast and we've beengrowing. Um, this is the first
year that I'm gonna be having ,um, we've been running two
shifts downtown , um, two eighthour shifts since April. And
that's, that's not the , thetoffee kitchen itself is one
shift, but I'm talking aboutthe toffee line. Mm-hmm .
(25:26):
we would have that thingrunning 16 hours a day. And
right now we have, with a fewDenver retail stores, we have ,
uh, just over 200 employeeswith , uh, 120 of those fully
benefited with 4 0 1 K match.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That's great. And how many employees do you hire
seasonally? When you're busy?
How many do you feel like youhave to bring on? So
Speaker 3 (25:49):
That's, that's a great point. 'cause that's what
it used to be. Back when my dadwas doing it, they'd literally
hire people. And some peoplelike to work half a year and
then be home with their kidsduring the summer, whatnot. But
it , we'd hire people in April,get ready to make candy, but
come January, you knew you wereseasonal and you got laid off.
Nowadays we are working waypast that and doing this
(26:11):
wholesale stuff beyond to beingthe Costcos and the QVCs and
some other o other big boxstores where we're able to cook
year round . And we're, we're ,I'm , we have very few seasonal
employees now. I mean, some onthe retail side,
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Retail side mean you have to have more for the
shifts and the retail side,right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Well, and it just , it is , we, we ramp up quite a
bit during the holidays mm-hmm.
as far as making the toffee,we're hiring people on. And
even when we're not gonna bemaking, we don't make handmade
toffee year round . 'cause wemake it from April to December
and fire back up here and therefor a couple weeks at a time.
(26:49):
Mm-hmm .
10 ga 10 people in the coffeekitchen making it and about 20
people packing it. And that's30 people that were able to
keep on full-time. They used toget laid off in January and we
had find different odd ends forthem to do, which is , which
is, that keeps , keeps thingsway easier for everyone. Having
them , for them to be aworrying and also just keep
(27:10):
people on mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
partnership with Strive
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Strive. Oh, yes. My brother does that. Um, my
brother's actually on the boardfor Strive. Um, it's just , um,
we , uh, have an opportunityto, I'm trying to think, gimme
a second. We, oh, we do our ,um, gift pack boxes mm-hmm .
toffee and like two popcornsand a turtle. And it's like
(27:36):
these little cutout boxes. Andwe have , um, these, I don't ,
they search , they are specialneeds. A group of people that
come in and they're actuallyreally hard workers and we get
'em in line and each person hasa role of just putting one
thing in the box and we'll setup an assembly line and they
get in there and do it. Andthey, they , they come in
smiles on their faces. Yeah .
It's , it's , it's fun to see.
(27:57):
Is
Speaker 2 (27:57):
This a year-round position for those folks ?
Speaker 3 (27:59):
No, that is not, that is just during the
holidays. Uhhuh
just one month they come in, Ithink they wake work, they work
a shorter shift and it's likefour days a week.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Who do you think is your, who's your biggest
competition in the, in thetoffee world ? This is ,
Speaker 3 (28:14):
This is the weirdest thing. Everyone thinks that
it's gonna be another candycompany and it's not. I mean,
there's no one out there. I'mnot , I'm not really, I'm being
try to be humble, but there'sno one out there that does a
full butter toffee without cornsyrup like we do. Mm-hmm .
doing it. I mean, but theredon't, there's a lot of people
putting corn syrup and it's ,it's just a different product.
(28:35):
Mm-hmm .
there's enough room for both ofus. But the biggest competitors
we have out there in , in thewholesale world, and actually
direct consumer is, if you goon the website , uh, go on the
internet, there's so manypeople out there selling
different odds and ends thatdoesn't matter during the
holidays. Like, you Google onething, you're gonna see five
(28:56):
other competition things comeup like different baskets like
Sherry berries and , uh,1-800-FLOWERS. Everyone has a
presence and people nowadayswant to give something
different every year for theholidays. So it's, it's our ,
our competition is keeping thetradition. That's what
instrument's always been, ispeople passing down the
(29:17):
tradition and sending candy totheir families year after year.
Mm-hmm .
more, it's more and moredifficult because it used to
be, we didn't have a , like aton of com uh , competition. We
had a , we had a website beforeAmazon as a company.
Now you now you now you get onthe internet. Wow . It's like
people get so distracted andthey see one thing is , oh ,
that might be cool this year,but it's like people sending, I
(29:40):
know a box of fish or , I mean,like, there's so many different
things out there that you cansend during the holidays as a
gift. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Well I think , um, there's a real sense of pride
in this community about havingyou all here and, and making
this great product that'sshipped around the world. I
think it's so cool. And I knowa lot of people are super proud
of it.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yes, we do. And like , sometimes we still do some
marketing and advertisementhere, but I think for the most
part we're really well known .
We like to get out there, welike to give back to this
community. I think that that'sa big thing for us is making
sure that our community'sstrong. I'm a big believer in
that. But our , we spend mostof our marketing dollars away
(30:20):
from the community here. 'causepeople really do already know
who we are. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I'm glad you touched on giving back to the
community. 'cause I know youand I had a conversation
recently about you realize thatit's great that you provide
jobs and you have this companythat , uh, helps with the
economy. But until youpersonally started giving back
to the community , uh, youdidn't realize what an impact
you could have.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Well, it's just , uh, seeingwhat my parents have done. It's
like, and I see the joy itbrings them and it's just
something I wanted to getinvolved with and start doing.
And I've, I've been on the HopeWest Next Gen Board. I'm
currently on the D 51Foundation board and I've, I've
really enjoyed, I've been onthe , uh, D D A and the , the
(31:08):
bid,
Speaker 2 (31:08):
The downtown Development Authority Downtown
. Downtown
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Downtown Development Authority mm-hmm.
. And that's been , that's beena blast. Um, I really have
enjoyed that. Just seeing inthe past, I've been on that
board for seven years now, justseeing from when I moved back
here, what Grand Junction wasdoing to what we're doing now
mm-hmm .
area. Um, it's just beenamazing to see the strides
(31:32):
we've been taking 'cause of thedda, what we we're going out to
R F P , just trying to havesomeone look at us for a small
project. Now we're able toreally sit back and decide who
we're gonna give our money to,to help incentivize to do
different projects.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That's great. That's great. So how do you have time
for all this
Speaker 3 (31:50):
We make time. You know how it is . Yeah . We , we
all make time. I mean, andthat's the thing is people, all
these different boards, I meanhere and there, they do require
a little bit more time. But you, it's, you'd be surprised.
People think it's a lot, butyou can get out there and get
back without having to take waytoo much time, I think. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
philanthropy and all kinds ofgiving in this community from
the company
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Abs. Absolutely.
That's , uh, my mom's mainrole. That's pretty much all
she does is she keeps a , a , aspreadsheet of who we give to
every year. And she's in chargeof making sure we do a good job
of taking care of everyone. And'cause you know how it is, once
you like start at , like , onceyou start giving, they'll come
back and ask again. Mm-hmm.
(32:40):
well,
help on donations, as soon asyou ask you're , they're gonna
come right back and ask you.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Well, I love it because I, I made an ask , uh,
for the theater program atPalisade High School, and I
love that. Uh , like I calledthe company and they said, you
gotta talk to Jamie and , uh,she'll get back to you. I mean,
it was like, oh, I'm going tothe boss. Yeah. Right .
Speaker 3 (33:05):
That's , that's how , that's how it is . My mom's
big thing at the company is'cause we get a lot of
different school stuff like,you know , cheerleading or
sports or, and then we have abunch of fours. My mom's big
thing is she's still oldschool. If you shoot her an
email, she's , she'll respondto , it's like, I want you to
come in and talk to me. Mm-hmm.
gonna let you do it the phonecall . So yeah. It's like, Hey,
if you come down and you showyour face, you and she , she
(33:27):
pretty much, if you come downand show your face, she's not
gonna turn you down.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And it's so important for kids, especially
to , to learn that skill.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
It's a great learning opportunity. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
and, and what you've done inthat realm.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Okay . Um, so just being in the candy industry,
we'd go to different tradeshows and we'd run into our
friends and different people.
And with Colorado being one ofthe first to , to legalize
marijuana , um, everyone wasasking, you're Colorado, are
you doing that? Right. And it'snot, it wasn't necessarily
something we wanted to ventureout with until I started, I
(34:04):
started doing a bunch ofresearch and if you do
marijuana, you're, you'rereally held back to, only in
Colorado you start making amarijuana product. This is, if
you get licensing, you make amarijuana product, you aren't
allowed to make anything else.
Like you couldn't make aregular gummy, you couldn't
make a nutraceutical gummy.
You're just li strictly limitedto making a marijuana t h c
(34:25):
product. So I looked at thatand actually I sat down, my dad
and I sat down and had beentalking with city council
members and we were about toget a license to do that. And I
ended up not doing it. And whenyou bring up C B D, we went
with C B D 'cause the farm billhad just passed. This was
probably 2017, 2018. And with CB D, with the farm bill
passing, you could, it could goany state. So it weren't held
(34:47):
down to just Colorado. Mm-hmm .
the Tana family, the guys thatmade our continuous cook
Speaker 2 (34:55):
From the Netherlands.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
From the Netherlands , um, my , the , the crazy
Dutch guys
they specialized in. So theymake all the big machines for
Jelly Belly and they're reallygood at making all these
different , um, gummy machines.
And they, they actually made anew company. Their two sons,
actually their three sons , uh,made a new company as we
ventured off and made hybridconfections, my brother and dad
(35:17):
and myself , um, they madeanother company called O T C
over the counter , um,machines. We ended up making a
, they made , they made a gummymachine where you can infuse C
B, D or any other active, andwe started doing C B D and it
actually took off and is doinggreat for about two years. And
then C B D just died aseveryone's seen. It was a huge
(35:39):
craze and it's just no longer athing. So we had to switch
gears. And now this companywhere we found out a little a
niche , um, doing, it's callednutraceutical gummies. It's
anything below apharmaceutical, so an apple
cider vent or gummies,ashwagandha, melatonin,
anything from mushrooms, thelegal kind of mushrooms, not ,
(36:00):
not the fun ones. Um, but we'vereally changed gears and
getting in doing that, we'redoing 'em for Sprouts and a
little bit with Vitamin Shop .
Um, but it , it's been , it'sbeen, it's been a huge learning
experience transitioning fromthe C B D to this nutraceutical
world. Mm-hmm.
Because if , I mean , if you goto the grocery store, I'm sure
you've seen all the different ,um, gummy Yeah . Supplements
(36:22):
that you can get. Yeah .
Anywhere from vitamin C tosleep gummies to heartburn to
collagen to,
Speaker 2 (36:29):
And so that is, that's something you're hoping
to expand going forward? Imean,
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I mean that's what we've Oh , expand that company.
Yeah . Um, we are, we'recurrently expanding there right
now. There'll be a new buildinggoing up there and , but it
should be built by December.
That's more for warehousing,not production. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Are those produced in the downtown facility now?
Nope .
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Those an offsite facility. It's right there. Um,
it's unmarked. It's right thereright across from north of the
, uh, uh, fire departmentthere. I'll take you down
there. You can check it out.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Gosh, I'm gonna get the whole tour. I ,
Speaker 3 (37:02):
I'm really excited.
Yeah . If we get rock in thatgummy line, we can make about
600,000 gummies in five days.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Wow. Cool. So you go to trade shows and learn new
techniques all the time.
Connect with other candymakers.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
It's , I , um, so my brother does a lot more of the
trade sales , uh, shows. 'causethey're a lot of sales. I go to
one or two a year. Um , andit's not necessarily more new
techniques. Um , we're nottrying to reinvent the wheel .
I think my dad ventured out andtried to make a lot of
different candies and we foundTOFFEE's our go-to mm-hmm .
been taking more and more skewsaway. I think you can get
(37:39):
people distracted. I think ifyou're good at one thing, you
just stick with it and reallydrive it home. Mm-hmm .
that. But going to the tradeshows, it's real, my , my dad
calls it fog in the mirror.
It's like, you , you gotta behere. Um , I'm not poo-pooing
'em , but sometimes we don'tget a ton out of 'em . But I
mean, if you're, if you're outthere selling and Costco's
(38:00):
walking around and they don'tsee out there like, oh, where's
Strom ? Mm-hmm.
But I mean, we , we go to thesetrade shows where we are, we're
a little guy out there comparedto the Mars, the Jelly Bellies
and the Hershey's the
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Right. But so much better. So much better.
. Thank you. Yeah. Uh , well,Doug, is there anything else
that you would like to sharewith us , uh, about Grand
Junction or the company or ,um, yeah, speak to our
listeners.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
No, I'm just, I, my dad, his goal, my dad's goal
was to create a business. Tohave his sons want to come back
and not only be big enough butto want to work for, and my
brother and I both went toDenver University and I
graduated , um, with generalbusiness degree. And I wasn't
(38:49):
sure I was gonna come backright away, but I graduated in
2008 and that was a time a lotof people were laying off more
than their hiring. And I'd gonethrough quite a few
interviewing processes, but,and I was , I just realized I
wanted to come back and startedworking here in Grand Junction.
And right when I came back Iwas like leaving Denver. And
Denver at that time was theplace to be. Mm-hmm.
(39:10):
think I was probably, this is2010, so I was in my twenties
and in your twenties you wantto be in Denver. All the , you
got all the sports teams ,everything fun was going on and
through between now and then,it just, this, see, the
difference in Grand Junction isjust mind blowing . It's
(39:31):
actually fun. It was still fun,but it's act it's a lot more
fun now to see all the successwe're having, all the new
development, the people'sinterest into wanting to come
here, what the university'sdoing. Um , I mean, you're ,
you're involved with the realestate. I mean, it's just night
and day, what it was , what itwas 15 years ago.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
It is. And I think instrument is a big part of
that. So I think when peoplesee a nationally recognized
company having as much successas you do, it's inspiring and
say, if they can do it here, socan I. So
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Thank you. Yeah. I think a lot, a lot of it has to
do with, I think I'm glad wepassed the bond for the new
school. I think that's be ahuge thing. Um, with , with
that one in the past , I don'tknow what would happen, but
that's really one of the bigdrivers to get these bigger
businesses coming out here thatthey want to have a place where
their , their kids can get agood education in the hospital.
And I mean, we got the reccenter passed . I think that
(40:23):
was big. I I I just think we'refinally on a trend here , um,
with our, our, our people herevoting. Yes. I think we had a
long streak there whereeveryone was afraid of change.
Yeah . And they didn't want tovote any of these new tax
increases. And , and I think, I, I don't think I know that
this happening. There's gonnabe a huge uptick in everything.
(40:46):
I hope people will see that wecan keep on that trend. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I agree. So if people want to order online ,
uh, strom.com ,
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Strom.com
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And um, yeah. Go order online or go down to the
store and you can have stuffshipped all around the world
and
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Come , come down and see us. We free , I will
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Free looking forward to a tour free
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Example and I , I owe you a tour and come , come
see what we do. It's , I'd loveit. It's , it's pretty
remarkable.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Alright . Thank you very much for joining us today,
Doug. Uh , it's been apleasure. All right .
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Thanks for having me .
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Thanks everybody for tuning in to the Full Circle
podcast. Thanks to Doug SimmonsJr . Uh , and , uh, patronize
Strom , please. Great company,great product. And we'll see
you next time on the fullcircle. Thanks for listening.
This is Kristy Reese signingout from the Full Circle
Podcast.
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