There were a few new categories/surprises this year in Confectioner’s fifth annual award program for recognizing excellence in candy and gum vendors.

Just like winning strategies from winning companies are “works in progress,” so, too, are Confectioner’s Category Driver Awards that honor those winners.

The proof of that can be found in the evolution of the categories themselves: What was once the “low-carb” candy category quickly changed last year to “better-for-you.” And now the value-added category labeled “functional” is gaining ground.

A separate gum category was added this year to recognize all those that are neither breath-freshening nor functional, and yet deliver notable innovation. A “gift box” category was also added. And finally, bulk was dropped this year for lack of a clear winner. Apparently, that sub-segment of the confectionery category needs a lot of work to bring it back to excellence.

Beyond that, though, there is a lot of positive press. And so, with changes in place, and perhaps a few surprises to report, we present the top confectionery suppliers driving the growth of the candy industry for 2006. Looking at them in more detail, here are our 2006 winners with some samples of the words of praise they earned.

• “they know how to keep changing with the trends; when low-carb was hot, they were on it, and when that slowed down they went towards Weight Watchers — just phenomenal strategy”

• “great new products introduced; Doublemint mints were a good hit; the new flavors they brought out of Altoids have been very good; Orbit is awesome; it blows everything else away”

• many praise the company for being a “trendsetter player,” which “isn’t always easy for an established company” n

To push the industry toward even further excellence, retailer/distributor respondents were asked to name their top “wish list” item that would not only help make their buying job easier, but also raise the bar for the entire candy industry. Here are their top (anonymous) picks:

“Put the reps back on the street,” says one popular alternate-channel retailer. “We need people that can go back in the stores and check the goods to make sure they’re not expired and just properly set up the displays like they used to. Once upon a time everyone did it, now they’re cutting it out completely or using a third party.” He adds that it’s getting harder and harder to get “hands-on” assistance at the store level.

“As a supermarket operator, we’re definitely looking for more effective ways to merchandise candy in the store,” says a buyer. “We struggle to sell confections to more customers; because of the impulse nature of the category, we’re trying to figure out how to do more than just stack it up.” Therefore, he’d like to see more suppliers bring creative merchandising ideas to the table — ideas that move beyond what’s been done in the past.

“We need more lead time on new-item introductions,” relays a distributor. “Candy suppliers bring us new items and they say they start shipping in five weeks, but that doesn’t work for us. We look for a six-month lead time, and this is true industry-wide: retailers and wholesalers want more lead time, period.”

“The industry should band together in a promotional way to tout that candy is not a ‘bad’ food,” believes a drug buyer. “It’s not good the way we all sit back and take these industry knocks when we can do something about it. Kids sit on their butts all day — that’s the problem. But I’d like to see us all take out ads together in a cohesive, positive way for candy.”

Creating in-store merchandising/marketing programs that drive impulse and special-occasion purchases, such as POS materials, packaging, etc.

Providing excellent customer service (to retailers and distributors) that demonstrates a knowledge of the category and the customer

Displaying willingness to partner (with retailers and distributors) to achieve specific customer objectives, such as program flexibility, custom packaging, etc.

Winners are chosen from a tally of unaided interviews. Votes were tabulated from confidential retail and distributor sources, which, all together, represent more than 40,000 stores within a large variety of channels.