When you step into the Spangler Candy factory, the air smells like sugar.
Trays of circus peanuts rotate overhead. Workers hand place pinstripes onto candy canes. And lollipops pour into bags the size of pillows.
“You're in a candy factory, there's magic everywhere,” said company president Bill Martin, one of the people in charge of this Wonka-like paradise.
This world, however, exists outside of pure imagination. It’s based in the city of Bryan in far northwest Ohio.
Today, the factory makes one of Halloween’s most popular treats: Dum-Dums. Now, it’s one of the largest lollipop producers in the world. But it didn’t start out that way.
Spangler Candy’s Ohio history
In 1906, Arthur Spangler decided to make an investment.
“He had saved up a lot of funds from running paper routes … and he took $450 to the Courthouse Square in Defiance, Ohio, and he bought the Gold Leaf Baking Company out of bankruptcy,” Martin said.
He gave baking products a stab, but like his predecessors, failed to bring in much dough. So he and his brother decided to swap their bread and butter for chocolate.
“They would literally deliver their chocolates via horse and buggy,” Martin said.
Spangler Candy remained a regional confectioner until the 1950s, when it acquired Dum-Dums from the Akron Candy Company in Bellevue.
It spent decades ramping up the distribution of Dum-Dums, along with other sweets like Circus Peanuts, Bit-O-Honey, Sweethearts and Necco Wafers.
Today, the factory makes approximately 17 million pieces of candy every day, about 200,000 pounds.
A popular Halloween candy
At Halloween, Dum-Dums are a go-to candy.
“If you look across an entire year, Dum-Dums [is] probably the 13th or 14th ranked candy brand in the U.S., but at Halloween it jumps up into the top five or six candy brands,” said Evan Brock, Spangler Candy’s vice president of marketing.
The company estimates between 600 and 800 million Dum-Dums are passed out each Halloween.
The pops are especially popular with young trick or treaters, and not just because they’re easy to unwrap.
“Young kids don't often get to make decisions on their own,” Martin said. “But when they approach a bowl of dum-dums, it's all them. It might be like the first decision they've ever been allowed to make: Which flavor of dum-dums do you want?”
Blue raspberry and cotton candy are consistent favorites, Brock said, but root beer and cream soda have loyal followings too.
This year, the company is branching out with newer creations: spicy pineapple, chocolate orange, blueberry donut and even pickle flavored Dum-Dums.
It just goes to show, there really is something for everyone, Brock says.
“It's a very universally appreciated candy, and I think that that's why it is so popular at Halloween.”
But even as this holiday winds down, the production lines at Spangler Candy keep whirring as sales turn to another classic confection. The company is the largest U.S. manufacturer of candy canes too.
