Fannie May
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- For the federally sponsored mortgage corporation, see Federal National Mortgage Association.
Fannie May Confections, Inc. (commonly called Fannie May) is a Chicago based chocolate confectionary. H. Teller Archibald opened the first Fannie May store in downtown Chicago in 1920. Fourteen years later in 1934, there were four-dozen stores in Illinois and its surrounding states in the Midwest.
Fannie May was one of the few companies during World War II to not change their recipes because of the scarcity of ingredients. Because they made this choice, most of the stores were forced to close early because they were sold out of their products. In 1946, just after World War II, Fannie May created its most well-known candy to date, the Pixie. The 1970s and 1980s were also decades that Fannie May made history with the introduction of the Trinidad in 1970, and the creation of the Eggnog Creams in 1989. In 1991, Fannie May made the decision to make some of their candy creations with sugar-free chocolate, which made it available to the diabetics and the dieters of the nation. In 1992, Fannie May bought similarly-named competitor Fanny Farmer.
Fannie May's parent company, the Archibald Candy Corporation, closed because of an unshakable debt, forcing Fannie May to close as well and declare bankruptcy. This closing piqued the interest of one company in particular. The privately owned company, Alpine Confections, Inc. bought Fannie May out of bankruptcy seeing potential with the history of the convectionary's title and reopened it in October 2004.
In April 2006, Fannie May was sold for $85 million to Internet retailer 1-800-Flowers. Alpine Confections continues to operate the company.
[edit] References
- Fannie May Confections, Inc. History
- Yahoo! Finance Page on Alpine Confections, Inc.
- Consumer M&A Article on Alpine Confection, Inc.'s Purchase of Fannie May
