Fannie May returns to Chicago Tuesday when the candy brand’s new owners reopen the first of 47 stores they plan to operate in the area.
First to open will be the store at 95th St. and Ridgeland Avenue in Oak Lawn. Three others will follow later this week, with the rest, including the firm’s flagship Michigan Avenue store, opening in the next 30 days.
It’s an aggressive launch for Alpine Confections Inc. of Alpine, Utah, which is orchestrating a hurried, rolling launch hoping to get established for the holiday season and regain ground in Chicago–one of the largest, but also most competitive, marketplaces for boxed chocolates. More candy firms are based in the Chicago area than anywhere else in the U.S.
“Our focus is to get the core customer back in, the person that loves Fannie May that has missed it for the past six to seven months,” said Alan Petrik, a 30-year veteran of Fannie May’s former owner, Archibald Candy Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in January. Petrik was later hired to run Fannie May Confections Inc., now a subsidiary of Alpine.
Fannie May stores have been closed since Valentine’s Day when Archibald’s former owner, Jordan Co. LLC, shuttered all 228 stores after closing down the company’s West Loop factory.
At launch, Alpine will be selling about 75 percent of the bulk-candy varieties previously available–eggnog creams arrive in December while sugar-free chocolates reappear in January. It is still ramping up production of other versions at its Alpine Confections Inc. factory in Canton, Ohio, where all Fannie May candies will be made and trucked to Chicago stores.
While sorting out production and incomplete updates to store inventory equipment, Fannie May is pushing to get the stores open before Thanksgiving. And experts think that’s a good idea.
“They really have to,” said Nicole Hanrahan, director of the Chicago-based Candy Institute. “They would lose a huge percentage of their annual revenue if they could not get the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day business.”
Hanrahan said those three holidays account for more than half of all revenues of chocolate companies.
Alpine hopes to succeed where previous owners could not by dramatically cutting manufacturing and distribution costs and operating without organized labor.
It plans to operate the 47 most profitable of the 110 stores Fannie May had in Chicago and has moved production from its historic West Loop plant that operated with union labor until its closure earlier this year to a better-designed, non-union plant in Ohio.
Its reduced ranks of employees–expected to be 500, down from 3,000 who worked in the stores and factory as of Jan. 1–will not be represented by a labor union, the company said.
Though fewer stores may limit customer reach, Alpine representatives said they are not concerned about that right now. They say getting stores open is key to the revival of the brand along with the efforts to further develop the company’s mass market in grocery and drug stores.
Petrik said the company is reviving its direct marketing effort that many schools and charities throughout the area used to raise funds for their projects.
Behind Fannie May’s new plan are a pair of out-of-state Harvard MBAs who have spent the past 10 years buying distressed candy companies under bankruptcy protection. They bought Fannie May for $39 million this spring.
One, David Taiclet, grew up 100 miles southeast of Chicago in Culver, Ind., sampling Fannie May Pixies whenever his parents brought them home.
In the past decade the pair have scooped up four candy manufacturers: Kencraft Candy, of Alpine, Utah; Maxfield Candy, of Salt Lake City; Dynamic Chocolates, in Vancouver; and Harry London Candies of Canton, Ohio.
While the pair are making changes in production and distribution, they say they remain committed to maintaining the candy’s quality and taste.
“This is the same flavor that everybody grew up with,” said Petrik.
The candy is being made using the same ingredients that Archibald used for nearly 80 years, including the same chocolate made by Chicago’s Blommer Chocolate Co. and the same $500-per-gallon vanilla extract.
“I’ve been working with three very veteran guys from the old Archibald helping us match all those recipes,” said Petrik.
While it is a longtime Chicago brand, Fannie May’s sales have dropped in the Chicago area for the past several years as consumers have moved on to higher quality chocolates.
Fannie May fell from the top ranks of chocolate makers after a series of missteps–which included an aggressive expansion, lost contracts and a failure to invest in updated production facilities or a point-of-sale system to help it track its sales.
Rather than building a modern factory in the city or suburbs, Archibald remained wedded to a creaky factory strung along West Jackson Street.
Unlike the former Fannie May, the new management appears willing to invest in upgrades. The 1970s appearance of the stores is undergoing a revival, as are the insides.
“Think the stores will appear very bright and fresh to the customer and will welcome the modest and subtle changes,” said Petrik.
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Reopening schedule for the 47 stores
Opening Tuesday
6351 W. 95th St., Oak Lawn
Opening later this week
Yorktown Shopping Center, 225 Yorktown Center, Lombard
8534 Golf Road, Niles
Palatine Plaza, 265 E. Northwest Hwy., Palatine
102 W. U.S. Highway 20, Michigan City, Ind.
Opening Nov. 19
343 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago
Opening in the next 30 days
5543 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago
130 E. Wing St,, Arlington Heights
102 N. Lake St., Aurora
2012 Wilson Ave., Batavia
Two Rivers Shopping Center, 1196 W. Boughton Road, Bolingbrook
Northfield Square Mall, 1600 N. Route 50, Bourbonnais
126 Bridgeview Village Square, Broadview
107 E. North Ave., Carol Stream
River Oaks Shopping Center, Calumet City
402 S. Neil St. Champaign
200 Virginia St. Crystal Lake
2205 W. Ogden Ave., Downers Grove
Mallard Crossing Shopping Center, 933 Meacham Ave., Elk Grove Village
Otter Creek Shopping Center, 230 S. Randall Road, Elgin
U.S. 31 and U.S. 45, 324 LaGrange Road, Frankfort
620 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn
2579 Golf Road, Hoffman Estates
18101 S. Halsted St., Homewood
2 S. LaGrange Road, LaGrange
495 Ela Road, Lake Zurich
17245 Torrence Ave., Lansing
Butterfield Square, 1433 Peterson Road, Libertyville
7001 N. Lincoln Ave., Lincolnwood
14242 S. Bell Road, Lockport
14701 S. Cicero Ave., Midlothian
10700 S. Cicero Ave., Oak Lawn
9350 W. 159th St., Orland Park
Towns Crossings Shopping Center, 2590 Route 30, Oswego
31 S. Prospect Ave., Park Ridge
4203 N. Sheridan Road, Peoria
2322 Illinois Route 59, Plainfield
Mall at Cherryvale, 7200 Harrison Ave., Rockford
2438 Charles St., Rockford
10066 N. Skokie Blvd., Skokie
6300 S. Kingery Highway, Willowbrook
Wood Grove Mall, 1001 75th St., Woodridge
Indiana
3949 Ridge Road, Highland
8045 Broadway, Merrillville
1505 U.S. Route 41, Schererville
Wisconsin
Janesville Mall, 2500 Milton Ave., Janesville
Hilldale Shopping Center, 702 N. Midvale Blvd., Madison