THE SWEET LIFE
Confectioners bring smiles to locals’ faces.
WRITTEN BY MELISSA SIIG
PHOTOS BY JEFF ROSS AND CANDICE NYANDO
“Chocolate is the answer. Who cares what the question is.”
~ Author Unknown
All humans have four things in common — the need for food, water, and shelter, and a love of candy. People crave sweets when they are happy, turn to them when they are down. Candy is used to celebrate special occasions — weddings, graduations, the birth of a child — and sad times. Haven’t we all dipped our hand into a bowl of M&Ms when we were depressed? Our love affair with confections is no surprise. Babies are born with a preference for only one kind of taste: sweet.
Perhaps the universal adoration of all things sugary is one reason why candy makers seem to be some of the happiest business people on the planet. After all, they get to put a smile on their customers’ faces every day. But making candy is more than just about satisfying people’s sweet teeth. It’s also a precise science that, while using few ingredients, emphasizes temperature and timing, and has taken some candy makers years to perfect. Five local confectioners, ranging from a global company that competes with some of the most well-known candy makers in the world to small, one-person operations, share their stories about the art of making candy, be it fudge, toffee, or chocolate, and why the sweet life is the life for them.
BIGGEST LITTLE CANDY MAKER
|
Joe Dutra, president and CEO of Kimmie Candy in Reno |
Joe Dutra was a third-generation farmer in Sacramento when he got into the candy business on a whim. In 1999, an employee introduced him to a Korean candy that was just hitting the United States — candy-coated, chocolate-covered sunflower kernels. Dutra was so enticed by the treat he read the book, The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars, and became convinced that the candy business was a good business to be in, and he started Kimmie Candy Company.
Dutra’s foray into the candy industry got off to a rocky start, however. In 2001, he had just produced his first bags of the sunflower candy when Mars — the $30 billion company that makes Snickers, Dove, Twix, and more — sued him for trademark infringement. Mars claimed that Kimmie Candy Company’s mascot, known as KC, was too similar to the M&M’s mascot. So Dutra redesigned KC, resulting in the smiling, sandal-wearing red sunflower seed you see today. It also gave Dutra the idea of branding his candy.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to us,” he says. “We spent all this money on attorneys, so we decided to trademark the brand.”
Dutra came up with the name Sunburst, and, as luck would have it, that year Mars had failed to renew its application to trademark the name Starburst. With that good fortune, Dutra resolved to become “a little M&M company.” He set up manufacturing in South Korea, and started producing another Korean favorite: candy-coated chocolate chunks he named ChocoRocks.
Why was Dutra drawn to Korean candy? Koreans are known for their sugar panning, a method of applying a candy shell to candy or nuts (think M&Ms or Jordan almonds). Kimmie Candy uses a hot panning technique, where the candy is put in a large, stainless steel pan and then coated with sugar and chocolate. This tends to apply a more uniform coating, Dutra says, as opposed to cold panning, whereby the candy shell is glazed.
“Hot panning is more of an art form,” he says.
According to Dutra, Kimmie Candy’s panner, Ooin Jung, is one of the top five in the world. That’s why Dutra helped bring him to the U.S. from Korea when he decided to move the manufacturing back to the States in 2006. Dutra chose Reno as the location of Kimmie Candy’s new manufacturing facility for several reasons, one being Reno’s ideal climate for candy making.
“It’s a wonderful place to do chocolate,” Dutra says. “There’s no humidity and cool nights. Chocolate and humidity don’t work.”
The Reno factory opened in 2008, and operates six days a week, 24 hours a day. In addition to Sunbursts and ChocoRocks, the factory produces Kettle Corn Nuggets, a toasted and salty kernel draped in chocolate, and ChocoAlmonds. Every product comes in 18 different colors.
“We are known as a color company,” Dutra says.
The company also makes custom candy, candy for private labels such as Pepsi-Co and Whole Foods Market, candy for toppings (such as at yogurt shops), and a small natural line of candy (using natural colors from vegetables such as beet juice and tomatoes). The company also sells Kimmie Candy in an adorable Nevada-shaped plastic box. (Dutra is a huge proponent of Reno and Nevada, and promotes the city and state through Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada and other opportunities whenever possible.)
Dutra also keeps busy as president of Westec Inc., an agricultural consulting business that exports non-GMO seeds and crops to the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. (His company actually is the leading hybrid corn seed distributor in Saudi Arabia). But candy is his passion.
Today, Kimmie Candy produces 5,000 pounds of candy a day, 120,000 pounds a month. In 2010 the company grew by 47 percent, bringing in $2.8 million and employing 26 people, including his son John (who runs production and logistics) and daughter Kathryn (who runs packaging and warehousing). Next year, as the company prepares to go into major national retailers such as Ross, Safeway, and Costco, Dutra hopes to expand to 210,000 pounds of candy a month. Currently, Kimmie Candy products can be found at WinCo Foods and Cost Plus World Market in major U.S. cities and as far away as the Philippines and Dubai.
“If you look at the history of the candy business, it’s recession proof and grows every year if you have a good product,” Dutra says. “Candy is an affordable treat. Everyone likes to eat something that’s sweet.”
MELT IN YOUR MOUTH
|
Michael Olinger, manager of Grandma’s Fudge Factory in Virginia City, makes a variety of candy, including their most popular: the peanut butter chocolate swirl fudge |
Grandma’s Fudge Factory has been around for almost half a century. Opened in 1969 in Virginia City by a grandmother armed with some family recipes, the store changed hands 12 years ago, but the Olinger family continues to make candy the old-fashioned way and with no artificial ingredients. All the chocolate is handmade by Philip Olinger, a food chemist who worked for a sugar-free sweetener company for 33 years and moved his family from New York to buy Grandma’s. His son Michael Olinger, who manages the store, is in charge of making the brittle, caramel, and toffee. Master Chef Kevin Ghiglieri makes the fudge.
How is fudge different from chocolate? Michael says he’s been searching for a true definition of fudge for years.
“The texture is between cake and cake frosting, like a firm frosting,” Michael says. “You’re going for something slightly chewy but very smooth.”
Fudge, which has a lower fat content than chocolate, has a higher melting point — 250 degrees F versus 98.6 degrees F for chocolate.
“It all has to do with the amount of fat and how it’s mixed with the sugar,” Michael says.
Grandma’s has 28 different flavors of fudge, from peanut butter chocolate swirl (the store’s most popular candy; it even outsells chocolate) to rocky road and chocolate amaretto. Its chocolate almond toffee, another bestseller, is Michael’s favorite candy to make.
“You have to stir fast enough so the water doesn’t force the sugar to separate from the butter,” he says. “It’s the most rewarding to make, such a good mixture of flavors — bittersweet, sweet, and salty.”
Although making candy can be hard work, Michael enjoys his job.
“I love making people smile,” he says. “When you work at a candy store, it’s going to happen a lot more than at a grocery store.”
CRUNCHY CANDY
|
Mindy Miller, owner of Tahoe Toffee Candy Company in Gardnerville, holds her almond toffee, her most popular candy in the shape of Nevada, at Napa-Sonoma Grocery Company, which sells her candy |
Working at a glass company doing sales and bookkeeping may not sound like a path to becoming a confectioner, but that’s what happened to Mindy Miller. As someone who always baked and made candy over the holidays, she made gift baskets for the company’s customers that included homemade cookies and candy. She started selling some of her gift baskets at local stores in Gardnerville, Nev. So when Miller got laid off from her job in 2009, continuing to make candy seemed like a good way to keep busy, and Tahoe Toffee Candy Co. was born.
Miller’s almond toffee comes from a family recipe, and today it’s her most popular candy. One reason is because the toffee is shaped like the state of Nevada.
“It’s a great novelty,” Miller says.
Miller also makes honeycomb, which she describes as a cross between a Butterfinger and a molasses chip dipped in chocolate. She also makes peppermint bark, caramel corn, caramel turtles, and caramel squares.
Tahoe Toffee products can be found in 40 locations, including the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa gift shop in Reno, Napa-Sonoma Grocery Company in Reno, Sparks Florist in Reno and Sparks, and the Nevada Store in Reno. Besides satisfying your sugar craving, buying Tahoe Toffee gives you something else to feel good about — ever year Miller donates a half a percent of her proceeds to the League to Save Lake Tahoe.
SECRET FAMILY RECIPE
The Chocolate Nugget Candy Factory in Washoe Valley opened in 1984, but the Salzwimmer family has been making candy for three generations. Grandfather Frank opened a candy store in Ohio in the 1970s, and son Dan bought and sold candy machinery before opening the Chocolate Nugget, which is now managed by grandson Danny. The Chocolate Nugget makes a variety of candy, including fudge, chocolate, caramels, chocolate-covered marshmallows, and peanut brittle, which is based on a secret family recipe.
“Normally peanut butter is a thick type of toffee, but ours is thin and crispy,” Danny says. “If you can eat a potato chip, you can eat our peanut brittle.”
|
|
The peanut brittle comes in different flavors: almond, cashew, coconut, and jalapeño.
Danny, who has worked his way up from doing the dishes, says that it’s taken him three years to perfect the art of candy making.
“It’s very precise. You get a couple of degrees off, high or low, and it will change the composition of the candy — making it too hard or too soft,” he says. “A few degrees will determine if the candy is great or if it doesn’t come out at all.”
Danny says there’s nothing better than seeing people take pleasure in the candy he made.
“I like taking simple ingredients and turning them into something someone likes and enjoys and comes back for,” he says.
The Salzwimmer candy only can be found at its two locations: its store in Washoe Valley and at its factory in Mound House. The Washoe Valley store instantly is recognizable by the 18-foot fiberglass statue of a gold miner kneeling on one leg. The Salzwimmers bought the statue, which was once on top of a now long-gone casino, because the giant prospector holds a nugget in his hand. A chocolate nugget, perhaps?
JuJu Z. Treat Company
Over a Memorial Day weekend camping trip in 2009, Karen Brunings and her family were sitting around the campfire when someone came up with the idea of stuffing the chocolate inside the marshmallow before roasting it over the fire. But the chocolate wouldn’t melt and the marshmallows lacked flavor. So Brunings decided to make her own. She started by making the treats in her own kitchen and giving them away to friends. They became so popular that by the following summer she moved to a commercial kitchen in Truckee and was selling her confections at Truckee retail stores such as Ace Mountain Hardware, the Cooking Gallery, and the Glenshire General Store. The marshmallows, all made with real fruit and no preservatives, come in five different flavors — vanilla, chocolate, coconut, raspberry, and orange — each with a chunk of milk or dark chocolate inside.
But perfecting the art of making marshmallows, and figuring out the right temperature at which to cook them in order to hand-stuff the chocolate inside without melting it, took time for Brunings.
“Marshmallows are like a gigantic science project,” she says. “It’s about timing and temperature. You have to cook it correctly or else you get a flopped batch.”
Brunings, who also creates seasonal flavors such as peppermint and pumpkin spice for the holidays and key lime pie in the summer, makes about 20 batches of marshmallows (or 240 bags) a day during peak times. The marshmallows are not just for s’mores; they also work in Rice Krispies treats, chocolate martinis, and hot chocolate. (JuJu Z.’s website has a list of recipes.)
Brunings delights in the fact that her treats are used at weddings, family campouts, and parties.
“Knowing that people put something I created into the fold of their lives, it’s a humongous gift,” she says.
So whether you’re in a good mood or bad, looking to celebrate or drown your sorrows, candy will always be there for you. These five local candy makers are betting that a taste of one of their treats will lift the corners of your mouth into a giant grin. Keep eating, and it just might become permanent. They should know. These confectioners haven’t stopped smiling since they started making candy.
Melissa Siig is a freelance writer in Tahoe City, Calif. She consumes dark chocolate on a daily basis.
RERSOURCES
Kimmie Candy Company
525 Reactor Way, Reno
775-284-9200, www.Kimmiecandy.com
Besides the factory’s retail shop, you also can find the candy at the Flag Store in Sparks and the Nevada Store in Reno
Grandma’s Fudge Factory
20 N. C St., Virginia City, 775-847-0770, www.Bestfudge.com
Tahoe Toffee Candy Co.
No retail location
775-790-1882, www.Tahoetoffee.com
You can find the candy at Napa-Sonoma Grocery Company in Reno, Atlantis Casino Resort Spa gift shop in Reno, Sparks Florist in Reno and Sparks, and the Nevada Store in Reno
Chocolate Nugget Candy Factory
611 US Highway 395 North, Washoe City
775-849-0841
JuJu Z. Treat Company
No retail location
530-320-8051, www.Jujuztreats.com
You can find the candy at Ace Mountain Hardware, the Cooking Gallery, and the Glenshire General Store in Truckee
