Playing on consumers’ memories and emotional connections to nostalgic flavors and products can spell success for food manufacturers, according to a new report from FONA International.
“We have all the competitors that everybody else does in the States,” say founder Robin Burnette. “We have all the grocery stores, Walmart. They’re selling chocolate bars. [But] in Canada they sell all Canadian chocolate bars. A majority of Canadians go south in the winter time, so we carry a lot of U.S. chocolate bars. We’ve got that chocolate bar that you like from the States that you found, and we also bring in the British chocolate and a lot of Dutch licorice.”
Ashley Reinsmith, Creative & Coordinator Extraordinaire, and Terese McDonald, founder, have taken the Chicago-based Candyality stores to the next level of confectionery retail.
Peter Blommer, president and ceo of Blommer Chocolate, first met Nello Ferrara in 1991 at a Western Candy Conference in Arizona. “When Nello took the stage at the gala dinner and broke into song, I knew this was a special man and a wonderful industry,” Blommer recalls in an online guestbook on the Chicago Tribune’s website.