Full Circle with The Christi Reece Group
Compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope, from the mountains to the desert. Christi Reece and her team hear from the movers, shakers and characters of the Grand Valley and surrounding mountain towns that make the Western Slope the place we all love. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll love with the Full Circle!
Full Circle with The Christi Reece Group
Doug Simons Jr - Enstrom Candies - Full Circle with The Christi Reece Group
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Our sweetest episode yet! Christi sits down with Doug Simons Jr, VP of Manufacturing and Co-owner of Enstrom Candies in Grand Junction, CO. Get a fascinating look behind the scenes of how their world famous toffee is made and their commitment to quality at this multi-generational family company.
You'll probably want to order some toffee after listening, so head over to their website to get some STAT! Can't wait? They have multiple retail locations as well, locations listed on their website.
If you prefer to watch your podcasts, head over to our YouTube page!
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Speaker 2The Full Circle podcast, compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope, from the mountains to the desert. Christy Reese and her team here from the Movers Shakers, and characters of the Grand Valley and surrounding mountain towns that make the Western slope the place we all love. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll love with the full circle. Hi everyone. Kristy Reese here. Welcome back to the Full Circle podcast. I'm really excited today to welcome our guest, Doug Simmons, Jr . From Strom Candies. Strom , not Stroms, right?
Speaker 3Strom Candies .
Speaker 2Right . Strom Candies. Um, thanks for joining us, Doug.
Speaker 3Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Yeah.
Speaker 2I've been really excited to get to know you better and , um, excited to learn more about your company. And first of all, let me say I love Strom Toffee. I mean, I could eat <laugh> so much of that, and we give it as gifts here at our office, so there's always some in our refrigerator. And so when, as we as realtors don't get to eat lunch sometimes, that's all we're eating all day <laugh>. And it is really nutritious and delicious.
Speaker 3Appreciate it . You got some protein in there. Yeah, it's made with love. No calories.
Speaker 2No calories. Thanks for that. Now I can eat more . Um, gosh, where do we start? So your current , uh, title is Vice President of Manufacturing and you're co-owner with your brother, Jim. That's
Speaker 3Correct.
Speaker 2You have taken over running the company from your folks?
Speaker 3We have. I , my , my brother and I still currently share an office with my dad, Uhhuh . So he's in there. He's in there most days, but I'd say four days a week. Okay . We're slowly pushing him out, but Uhhuh , but he's still fully hands-on. He likes to stay . He wants to see us doing everything, but he definitely still has his say when he wants to.
Speaker 2So when he married your mom, 'cause your mom is Strom , um, did he get into the company right away? Did he have a love for what they were doing? He,
Speaker 3He did. He started working at some odd jobs. They , his first job that made him clean up, I guess they call it the slop on the floor after you , after you cook for a while with butter, just the butter, the fumes and , and air and everything, sorry , collecting. And he's the one that was in there doing the dirty work, cleaning that up. And then he eventually got into making the handmade toffee. Um, but then he did end up marrying my mother and they were working toge together there for a while . And it came to a point when my grandparents Amal and Mary Strom had asked , uh, my mom's two brothers, Rick and Bill, if they want , had any interest. And at that time they didn't. And then they asked my parents if they did, and like, Hey, we're, we're very interested. So they ended up buying the company from Mary and Amal Strom ,
Speaker 2Your brother , uh, uncles kind of kicking themselves later down the road.
Speaker 3They , they were a little bit here and there. My uncle Bill was a farmer and he went out to Kansas and helped run farm equipment and kind of liked doing that. He never really wanted to come back. Yeah. Um , my uncle Rick and my Aunt Linda, actually, as soon as we started opening stores in Denver, don't mark me on this, but I think it was the early nineties that we opened a store in Cherry Creek. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And, and now we have one in Arba as well. They still manage the stores out there. And oh , wonder , actually just last year, my cousin Brendan just, he's moving in, he's gonna start managing 'em . And my aunt and Uncle Rick are kind , uh, moving their way out.
Speaker 2Awesome. So it's a real family affair. It is . 'cause you're fourth generation Yeah . In the business, right?
Speaker 3Yep . My mom's grandfather, my great-grandfather started in 1960
Speaker 2Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he was just making candy for friends and that kind of a hobby.
Speaker 3That's , that's exactly what he said . He used to say, he is like, I'm just here making candy for a few of my friends. Uhhuh <affirmative> . And it's turned into a little bit more than that now. But yeah,
Speaker 2I love thinking about what it was like in Grand Junction during those years and how word got out. You know, we didn't have social media and all that kind of stuff, so yeah .
Speaker 3It , it , it was more or less a hobby for him when he started doing it. Um, he actually, it was back when people were rationing their sugar and whatnot. And then he had people that rationing it , giving him , giving him sugar. And he'd be just making it as a hobby. And he'd give it to a few , few friends here and there and like, man, you , you should really , you could take this somewhere and be like, before you know it, he started mailing it to friends and family in different states. And before we knew it, he had a mail order company. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2And did he perfect that recipe for the Almond Toffee early on? Or was it something that you all have continued to change or improve?
Speaker 3I , I think that's one of the major things. And that's why my mom's still around. It's like, we do not mess with the recipe. It's the exact same. A lot of companies nowadays. You can see you one day want to streamline things and you can get way more production out, get longer shelf when you're , uh, tweaking the recipe, adding corn syrup and different things that you don't really want on your label. We still have a clean , uh, label. It's got , uh, butter, sugar, almonds, chocolate water, and a little bit of , uh, sunflower ethin as an emulsifier. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2And we were talking earlier when you first got here about , uh, secret, a secret to the toffee and the recipe. But you said there's no really no secrets,
Speaker 3No secret. We've always, it's been wide , like right in the open, we have the window there. We don't hide the ingredients. You see? Exactly. If you wanna watch how much we're putting in, they see how it's putting , they're putting in. We'll even share the amount we're putting if you want. But it's really, the elevation is what is helping us cook that light, fluffy toffee. 'cause when you cook it at the elevation, anything you're cooking, the elevation is boiling. Water period boils faster. So the faster you boil water, you faster you boil out the moisture and the candy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And like I was telling you, that's exactly the art of making candy is like the temp the the temperature you cook to is gonna give you the result of how much water you're cooking out. So the higher temp, the less water leftover.
Speaker 2Did your grandfather realize that, that that was part of what made his candy so special?
Speaker 3I, I don't know that for sure. I think he figured out how long he had to cook it here, but I don't know if he'd ever been at sea level trying to cook it. I don't know that. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative> , what else do you think makes the toffee so good? What do you eat? A lot of it. Um ,
Speaker 3I, I really don't. <laugh> , I , I , I have , I catch myself having a bite here or there. I find myself eating the ice cream more common than not . Um, it's the biggest thing with our toffee again, is the elevation and cooking it and it's light and fluffy. Most people when they think of toffee, they think of like a Hershey's, or not a Hershey's, but a heath bar. Yeah . Or they think of a English toffee and it's like, oh, this is in England. Sometimes they give you your toffee like a hammer joking around 'cause you need to break it. Uhhuh <affirmative> . Right. So we don't really, we, we claim ours is like a soft, fluffy toffee. And I think that's what we really get away with. And we, it takes people at least trying our candy to know it's something. 'cause people, a lot of people come off thinking they don't like toffee. Right . Until they try our toffee. And that's like our biggest selling point is you get in someone's mouth. That's our biggest selling .
Speaker 2Absolutely. Because I take it when I travel, I take it as gifts. Sometimes people say I no , not a toffee, phantom. Like, try it.
Speaker 3That's like one that's , and that's been our biggest thing is like, it's like everyone's like, how do you market your toffee? And it's, what they say is, it's like getting on the national candy aisle. Right. We've done that before. We had a , my brother did a great job, did a great sale, and we got into Walgreens. We're like, oh my gosh, we hit a home run here and we made millions of dollars worth of toffee and it went out to Walgreens and we thought we were kicking some mass . And then here we go, we find out there's two parts to making this cell once you get on the shelf. That's one part. Second part's getting off the shelf. So we got out there and people, I don't think people think they like toffee until they try our toffee mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we didn't get off the shelf, so we ended up having to do a buyback. 'cause after a year it's a perishable goods. So we ended up buying back the toffee from 'em because
Speaker 2They're not gonna be giving samples. They , at
Speaker 3Walgreens, they aren't <laugh> . And so I think we made maybe , uh, a small amount of money, but we had to buy back a bunch. So it was a , not a , not a great success. But whereas working with Costco, they do the sampling program. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And that does a big deal of justice for us once people get in their mouth and get a little try of it.
Speaker 2And talk a little bit about the Q V C uh, episode that came here. That was pretty cool. Well,
Speaker 3That , yeah. We've been doing , my dad has been the one you have to go through training to get on there. And my dad's been the one doing that. And he's been doing shows now, I wanna say six years mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And he goes out there. And this one in town was a special show because they've been going around to different , uh, states finding these manufacturing , uh, plants, what they've been doing business with. And they picked us as one and they actually came to our facility Yeah . And shot the show there . It
Speaker 2Was downtown here . Down here.
Speaker 3Yeah . And they were in the kitchen shooting it there. And um , actually that's one that I was on for a little bit. Uhhuh <affirmative> .
Speaker 2So you, you're used to being a star around
Speaker 3Town . <laugh> . I'm trying . Usually I don't like cameras and microphones, so I'm getting, I'm getting better. I'm learning. I'm gonna have to do it more. Yeah .
Speaker 2But that was a huge success, wasn't it? Yeah . The Q V C episode .
Speaker 3Well just that one , that one was great, but just, we've been growing and growing and we look at Q V C as this opportunity. Yes. It's a mark . Uh , we mark down the price quite a bit. They require anyone to be on there. They're using their name to sell your product. But here we are. That's what we want is people to who don't know who we are or had our candy. Right . To get that in their hand. Give it a try. I mean, this is, you can't pay for marketing and a strategy like this. You , it's even if we were giving away to get that much candy to new people mm-hmm . <affirmative> who haven't had our candy, who
Speaker 2Are gonna continue to buy it year after year. Yeah .
Speaker 3That's , and that's what we've been seeing. Yeah . Getting more and more.
Speaker 2And you all don't just make and sell toffee. You have expanded your product line significantly over the years. Talk about how that's changed over the years. How you went from toffee and what was the next step and love the ice cream and then what's coming next?
Speaker 3Yeah, so , um, my great-grandfather actually was , he was a Jones Strom ice cream that he had . So it's kind of like this idea to bring back the old lore, family lore of like, oh, we used to do ice cream. So we started doing ice cream, I mean, maybe 20 years ago mm-hmm . <affirmative> and which that's my favorite thing. I catch myself eating that. We use a really high fat , uh, butter or , uh, fat pre-mixed content mm-hmm . <affirmative> to make the ice cream. Um, really love that. And we just make enough ice cream. We don't have a machine big enough to sell any of that online or do direct to consumer. We just do that for our , uh, local retail stores. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , we have one , um, two here in Junction. We just opened a new , uh, little plug. We just opened a new Montrose store today and it's
Speaker 2Today. Oh, congratulations.
Speaker 3Yep . It's in the old Russell Stover , um, retail store there, which we're , uh, sharing the location with home loan, but going off topic there a little bit. But then our other products , um, they're not necessarily very many of 'em are new. Um, my great-grandfather really like making truffles and we still do like the artisan things making , uh, handmade candy canes. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , which you'll have to come . I that's will give you a tour. You have to come see our operation. I would love that. But we still do the artisan handmade candy canes where you hand roll mm-hmm . <affirmative> and then you throw it on a hook and you stretch out the candy and it means , it's hard to explain. You gotta come see it. But we're hand crooking them and everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2And so , uh, I really like the , um, the sugar free mm-hmm . <affirmative> candies that you have too. They taste delicious.
Speaker 3Yeah . I mean, we do a minimal amount of those again, just for our retail stores, but they're made with , uh, malitol in which if you, if you look online by I was telling you about the hair , about gummy bears, that's a , that's a funny thing. Don't eat too much sugar free candy. I'll get you . But
Speaker 2<laugh> uhhuh little bit here and there, there and there. Better to just go with the sugar most of the time. Right.
Speaker 3Well , I mean, there's diabetic people and some people can't handle sugar. Yeah . But we do have that option. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> a few , a few things we do.
Speaker 2And, and your retail stores are a , a really great place to shop for so many things. I mean, obviously you can go in and get a coffee mm-hmm. <affirmative> , which is great ice cream chocolate, but you've got a tea selections and gifts and it's a great place to go in the holidays no matter what holiday it is. 'cause you have something themed around the holidays.
Speaker 3Absolutely. That's what , that's something we brought in the ice cream, the tea, the coffee. But it's just something like, hey, we , we are a seasonal , like candy is seasonal. I mean, we do, like , it used to be we like 90% of our business during the holidays. It's all mail order people coming in and buying our candy. But that's why we started doing coffee and ice cream. And it gives people a reason to come in for an everyday thing to have. And then maybe they'd impulse buy some candy, which we saw it happening here and there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for
Speaker 2Sure. I bet it's, I bet it's grown quite a bit though. Go ahead . Definitely has . As people have gotten used to,
Speaker 3When we run our different plugs, we have the, I dunno if you heard of our fourth of , or the July. We started the 4th of July. But we let kids come in and if they recite the pre the Pledge of Allegiance, we give you a cup of ice cream.
Speaker 2That's great. Great. So you're on more than manufacturing side than anything else. How has the process of making the toffee and the candies changed? And how has technology changed what you do See?
Speaker 3That , that's what I've really found a huge interest in. Um, this all came about. My dad has had a vision from when he take, took over the company , um, back when he started working there. Um, everything is, we call it a batch cooked or kettle cut cook you pour in the kettle, make your ingredients. Once it's cooked, you pour the kettle out, you have to start the process all the way over. Start cooking takes whatever, 30 minutes to make another batch. He had a vision, he wanted it, have a continuous cook system, meaning once you get it going, toffee just keeps coming out continuously. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And he threw out friends in the industry through the National Confections Association. He met some guys who introduced him through , uh, this Dutch family who are now a good , good family friends with the tus family . Um, he flew out there with a kettle and all the ingredients that we make our toffee with and showed him our process and what these guys are, they're , um, um, um, confectionary engineers. So they'll see a process and they'll streamline it Uhhuh <affirmative> to where you don't have to batch cook it. And he, my dad went out there and showed him . And a year later he's like, well , I think we figured it out. And it took a year because they kept on, like I was telling you earlier, they wanted to have us add corn syrup. It makes making everything easier. We're like, my dad's like, we're not, we're only gonna do this if we keep the exact same recipe. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And anyways, a year later he calls my dad and he's like, do you wanna do this? And he's like, let's, let's , let's go for it. Let's try it. Yeah . And it wasn't a cheap venture. And they brought down the machine from the Netherlands and it did not work right away <laugh> . Mm-hmm . It was not making the candy. It was supposed to, but how'd
Speaker 2They get it here?
Speaker 3Um , by , by sea freight. Uhhuh <affirmative> . And when you come down and see it, it's, it's a big line . And it makes about a thousand pounds of Tafi an hour.
Speaker 2A thousand pounds an hour.
Speaker 3But the , but the thing is, my dad became really good friends with the owner that's coming . Leo Tannis , because he , there was a process there that wasn't working, but he and my dad over like six to eight months of making bad it out candy product figured it out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 2Can you describe what the change was?
Speaker 3Um, it was , they needed , it was just temperatures. And was , this is all something they've never done before. So, but when , when you come look at the facility, it's a big , um, stainless steel coil. It's about 127 feet and it's probably maybe three inches in diameter coiled up. And it's in a big , um, cast iron tank. And it gets hot. We have a boiler. You have hot steam and pressure put on it, and it slowly goes up. And if you don't get it cooked right, it comes out slop and then it goes into another cooking process. It's a , a oil jacked screw, two cooking screws. Um , it's hard to explain <laugh> without you saying it. Yeah . But they , they finally, they , they re relent relentless and figured , eventually figured it out.
Speaker 2And so when you go down to the retail store and watch the people cooking, how much are they making in there? And how , how , what percentage of your
Speaker 3Process is going on there ? So we call that , we call that our traditional toffee. And that's the handmade toffee, which has to be refrigerated or frozen. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And we started ac we started actually making that in May and freezing it for Christmas. And I wanna say that is about a third of all of the candy we make because we have , we have two different sides of the business. We have a retail and our wholesale mm-hmm . <affirmative> , when I say retail, that's anything in our retail source or our direct to consumer from our website to a customer. When I say wholesale, it's like a Costco or a Q V C or there's some other companies that we sell with them NDAs that can't say <laugh> , but those are under, we make the toffee and it goes to someone else and they sell it. Um, but we make about 3 million. Last year we made about 3 million pounds of toffee and about, we do about half and half retail and wholesale. Okay.
Speaker 2And so the, the handmade stuff in that you see being made on site there through the windows, how is that different from what the machine is doing?
Speaker 3So it's the exact same ingredients. When you see the handmade stuff, it's slabbed out. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Right. And then they cut into bigger , um, chunks and they take that and then they take it back and it's hand broken and packed in boxes. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , the stuff on the toffee line is pulled , poured out on a stainless steel belt, probably maybe a foot and a half wide. And that goes down a long process of cooling. And then it's actually slit into a little one and a half inch slit , uh, strips. And then that's chopped into little , uh, one and a half inch by one and a half squares. And we call those petites. And what happens is they get fully enrobed in chocolate. Yeah. Yeah . Thanks for leading this on. This is good. Um, we've found out , uh, down the road throughout doing this, if you completely enro a piece of toffee in chocolate, the cocoa fat acts as a great barrier keeping the oxygen out of the toffee. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , because , uh, what happens is oxygen gets into the butter fats and oxidized butterfat is rancid fat.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 3And so that's why our , that's , that's where our hand broken toffee, where the sides are exposed, it has to be frozen. Right. So when we completely enroll in chocolate, the cocoa fat is acting as a barrier, keeping oxygen out. And we actually get a year shelf life. So that's what's opened us up in this wholesale world where we can have it on the shelf without it being frozen. Yeah.
Speaker 2And do you still have a period of the year where you don't ship? I think I was reading something about that. We , we
Speaker 3Are right now. But you <laugh> you better order quite a bit of toffee. 'cause it's probably you're gonna spend a 15, 20 bucks to ship a $30 box of toffee. Uhhuh <affirmative> . It's definitely makes it hard.
Speaker 2And you keep, you have a big freezer system mm-hmm . <affirmative> to keep all this
Speaker 3Absolutely
Speaker 2Toffee frozen. That's what it's all about. How many boxes are you have frozen at a time. I mean, I , I'm , I'm imagining like my eyes,
Speaker 3It's a ton. That's why , like , that's why I figured out there's years. That's why my dad took this business to the next level, is that I understand why he was stressed out, come the holidays. 'cause he would make a decision how much toffee, TOFFEE's gonna make compared to the last year. Right . And we kept growing. We don't wanna run , run out, and you're making a perishable good. But we can't make all the toffee we're gonna sell during Christmas in a couple weeks. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , like I said, we started making toffee in April, freezing it, getting ready to sell for the fourth quarter in the Christmas rush. 'cause when we're busy in our , in our mail room, FedEx will come and park a couple trailers. In our busy days, we'll be sending out 30,000 boxes in , in day day , a day in , in a , on our , our few busiest days. Yeah.
Speaker 2That's amazing. Wow. And you do some , uh, you ship overseas mm-hmm. <affirmative> for , um, service members for free. We do .
Speaker 3Is that right? We , yeah, we do that. Great . No , no shipping charge. That's try , try to do the small things. Yeah. And we , we try to like every once in a while we will. No one's perfect. We do overproduce here and there. And it , and it's not like my dad says, we're not manufacturing flashlights. You can't sell 'em next year. So when we , we do try to give back , uh, some of the candy. We overproduce like we've given it to D 51 a few years back when we overproduced and we do try to ship , uh, a bunch of candy overseas to our, our , our , our men and women out there protecting us. So That's
Speaker 2Awesome. Well , call me Doug if you have extras you need to get rid of. I'll , I'll drive down there. Um ,
Speaker 3Hope you got a big truck. <laugh>.
Speaker 2Uh , what's you , you talked about , um, that you like the ice cream. Is that, is that your, your favorite thing there? Do you have other favorites?
Speaker 3I , I
Speaker 2Do You have a favorite flavor?
Speaker 3I like turtles. I like caramel. And I like, I do , don't get me wrong, I do like toffee, but I don't know . I , I eat that seldom compared to everything else. But the ice cream. My favorite ice cream is the cookie dough. And it's just, it's just when I get done with lunch and I'm coming back and I'm checking on my retail folks, that , that's the one thing that tempts me. I don't get a cup. I'll just get one little plastic spoon and I'll have, every day I'll have one <laugh> , one little scoop, one little , uh, spoon scoop.
Speaker 2The advantage of being a ice cream store owner. <laugh> . Yeah . Um, so what do you see for the next 10 years in this business?
Speaker 3Well, right now our biggest problem is running outta space. If like, once you come and visit, you'll see we're on top of ourselves. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and we we're running outta warehouse space. We're actually, we've been in the midst on and off for the last three years of looking at building expansion facility and just with the build the cost of building you being real estate. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> understand this has been going up and up and we don't know if it's gonna come back down. But we, we had built out a plan for a whole new plant and facility and we were gonna do it and looked at the prices like, we don't wanna build this one . It's the peak of how expensive everything is right now. So right now, we're currently, we're actually, my dad and I yesterday went and looked at a piece of property that there's a warehouse for sale . It's about 18,000 square feet that we're gonna be purchasing here, it looks like just for some, some offsite , uh mm-hmm . <affirmative> , uh, storage that we really need. But currently we are working on plans to , uh, build a whole new facility out on 28 Road, which is , uh, we're way overdue. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not only for , not only for for production reasons, but for warehousing. I have some great warehousing guys that they're on top of each other and it's like playing Legos with uh , pallets. Yeah,
Speaker 2I bet. And so what do you envision happening with the facility downtown?
Speaker 3Uh , we don't know right away. Um, we'd love to, we we're definitely gonna keep our retail store there 'cause that the retail store's been there since 19 6, 19 60, since inception. So we keep that there. But , uh, I think our vision now it's downtown does not need a manufacturing facility right there. And I think there could be anywhere from housing to a restaurant on top to retail on the bottom. But I think that corner right there has some way cooler uses.
Speaker 2It is a great location. It's really nice to be able to walk there and get ice cream and everything you need. Um, I know from experience , uh, talking to people that your company is a really great place to work. Talk about a , as a leader of the company, how you treat your employees and how important that is to you.
Speaker 3Absolutely. I think <laugh> , I don't wanna throw my dad under the bus here, but I think my management style is way different than my dad's. Um, he's a little more vocal. Um, I've been in, I've been in the toffee kitchen. When he gets upset with everyone, something goes wrong. He'll , he's gonna let you know <laugh> , he's definitely gonna let you know. Um, I'm, I'm more, I'm very quiet. You'll know if I'm upset with you. I don't, I don't have to say very much. I, I demand everyone's respect and if, if I'm upset, you're gonna know. I'll make, it's more like shame than, than being aggressive and yelling at someone. But for the most part, we have very respectful employees. We've created a workplace that people really want to work at. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And I think a lot of the ways, how this has happened, we have really good longevity and we have really good leaders. And it just shows when we have new people coming to work and they see people that have been there for, I mean, anywhere from there . We have employees that have been there for 40 plus years. Um, I mean, Karen in the retail store, I don't know if you met her, she's been working there before. My parents, Karen Compton. Wow . And I mean, but it , we do have a lot of people been there 18, 25, 30, all up to four years. People see them like , Hey, this is a great place to work. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we , we , and if we want to treat our employees great, great benefits and , uh, 4 0 1 k matches. And , and it , getting into that, it's , it is been getting this one . That's one of the toughest things we've been seeing is with growth. And I don't know if after the pandemic it's been hard to keep employees. The turnover has been really fast and we've been growing. Um, this is the first year that I'm gonna be having , um, we've been running two shifts downtown , um, two eight hour shifts since April. And that's, that's not the , the toffee kitchen itself is one shift, but I'm talking about the toffee line. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and the main , uh, continuous cook process. So we would have that thing running 16 hours a day. And right now we have, with a few Denver retail stores, we have , uh, just over 200 employees with , uh, 120 of those fully benefited with 4 0 1 K match.
Speaker 2That's great. And how many employees do you hire seasonally? When you're busy? How many do you feel like you have to bring on? So
Speaker 3That's, that's a great point. 'cause that's what it used to be. Back when my dad was doing it, they'd literally hire people. And some people like to work half a year and then be home with their kids during the summer, whatnot. But it , we'd hire people in April, get ready to make candy, but come January, you knew you were seasonal and you got laid off. Nowadays we are working way past that and doing this wholesale stuff beyond to being the Costcos and the QVCs and some other o other big box stores where we're able to cook year round . And we're, we're , I'm , we have very few seasonal employees now. I mean, some on the retail side,
Speaker 2Retail side mean you have to have more for the shifts and the retail side, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3Well, and it just , it is , we, we ramp up quite a bit during the holidays mm-hmm. <affirmative> . So that's why I'm saying that's seasonal. But as far as making the toffee, we're hiring people on. And even when we're not gonna be making, we don't make handmade toffee year round . 'cause we make it from April to December and fire back up here and there for a couple weeks at a time. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . But we , we , we have between, we have 10 ga 10 people in the coffee kitchen making it and about 20 people packing it. And that's 30 people that were able to keep on full-time. They used to get laid off in January and we had find different odd ends for them to do, which is , which is, that keeps , keeps things way easier for everyone. Having them , for them to be a worrying and also just keep people on mm-hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative>. And , um, tell us about your partnership with Strive
Speaker 3Strive. Oh, yes. My brother does that. Um, my brother's actually on the board for Strive. Um, it's just , um, we , uh, have an opportunity to, I'm trying to think, gimme a second. We, oh, we do our , um, gift pack boxes mm-hmm . <affirmative> , so it's a box with like a one pound box of toffee and like two popcorns and a turtle. And it's like these little cutout boxes. And we have , um, these, I don't , they search , they are special needs. A group of people that come in and they're actually really hard workers and we get 'em in line and each person has a role of just putting one thing in the box and we'll set up an assembly line and they get in there and do it. And they, they , they come in smiles on their faces. Yeah . It's , it's , it's fun to see. Is
Speaker 2This a year-round position for those folks ?
Speaker 3No, that is not, that is just during the holidays. Uhhuh <affirmative> and they come in, I think it's just one month they come in, I think they wake work, they work a shorter shift and it's like four days a week.
Speaker 2Who do you think is your, who's your biggest competition in the, in the toffee world ? This is ,
Speaker 3This is the weirdest thing. Everyone thinks that it's gonna be another candy company and it's not. I mean, there's no one out there. I'm not , I'm not really, I'm being try to be humble, but there's no one out there that does a full butter toffee without corn syrup like we do. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , like you'll , there's, there's a few people doing it. I mean, but there don't, there's a lot of people putting corn syrup and it's , it's just a different product. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And even out there, there's enough, there's enough room for both of us. But the biggest competitors we have out there in , in the wholesale world, and actually direct consumer is, if you go on the website , uh, go on the internet, there's so many people out there selling different odds and ends that doesn't matter during the holidays. Like, you Google one thing, you're gonna see five other competition things come up like different baskets like Sherry berries and , uh, 1-800-FLOWERS. Everyone has a presence and people nowadays want to give something different every year for the holidays. So it's, it's our , our competition is keeping the tradition. That's what instrument's always been, is people passing down the tradition and sending candy to their families year after year. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And that , that it's , it's getting more, it's more and more difficult because it used to be, we didn't have a , like a ton of com uh , competition. We had a , we had a website before Amazon as a company. <laugh> . Now you now you now you get on the internet. Wow . It's like people get so distracted and they see one thing is , oh , that might be cool this year, but it's like people sending, I know a box of fish or , I mean, like, there's so many different things out there that you can send during the holidays as a gift. Yeah.
Speaker 2Well I think , um, there's a real sense of pride in this community about having you all here and, and making this great product that's shipped around the world. I think it's so cool. And I know a lot of people are super proud of it.
Speaker 3Yes, we do. And like , sometimes we still do some marketing and advertisement here, but I think for the most part we're really well known . We like to get out there, we like to give back to this community. I think that that's a big thing for us is making sure that our community's strong. I'm a big believer in that. But our , we spend most of our marketing dollars away from the community here. 'cause people really do already know who we are. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 2I'm glad you touched on giving back to the community. 'cause I know you and I had a conversation recently about you realize that it's great that you provide jobs and you have this company that , uh, helps with the economy. But until you personally started giving back to the community , uh, you didn't realize what an impact you could have.
Speaker 3Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it's just , uh, seeing what my parents have done. It's like, and I see the joy it brings them and it's just something I wanted to get involved with and start doing. And I've, I've been on the Hope West Next Gen Board. I'm currently on the D 51 Foundation board and I've, I've really enjoyed, I've been on the , uh, D D A and the , the bid,
Speaker 2The downtown Development Authority Downtown . Downtown
Speaker 3Downtown Development Authority mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And that's been , that's been a blast. Um, I really have enjoyed that. Just seeing in the past, I've been on that board for seven years now, just seeing from when I moved back here, what Grand Junction was doing to what we're doing now mm-hmm . <affirmative> , especially in the development area. Um, it's just been amazing to see the strides we've been taking 'cause of the dda, what we we're going out to R F P , just trying to have someone look at us for a small project. Now we're able to really sit back and decide who we're gonna give our money to, to help incentivize to do different projects.
Speaker 2That's great. That's great. So how do you have time for all this <laugh> ?
Speaker 3We make time. You know how it is . Yeah . We , we all make time. I mean, and that's the thing is people, all these different boards, I mean here and there, they do require a little bit more time. But you , it's, you'd be surprised. People think it's a lot, but you can get out there and get back without having to take way too much time, I think. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative>, and I know you all do a lot of , uh, philanthropy and all kinds of giving in this community from the company
Speaker 3Abs. Absolutely. That's , uh, my mom's main role. That's pretty much all she does is she keeps a , a , a spreadsheet of who we give to every year. And she's in charge of making sure we do a good job of taking care of everyone. And 'cause you know how it is, once you like start at , like , once you start giving, they'll come back and ask again. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and especially they're on other boards as well, <laugh> , when they're out asking people Yeah . For help on donations, as soon as you ask you're , they're gonna come right back and ask you.
Speaker 2Well, I love it because I, I made an ask , uh, for the theater program at Palisade High School, and I love that. Uh , like I called the company and they said, you gotta talk to Jamie and , uh, she'll get back to you. I mean, it was like, oh, I'm going to the boss. Yeah. Right .
Speaker 3That's , that's how , that's how it is . My mom's big thing at the company is 'cause we get a lot of different school stuff like, you know , cheerleading or sports or, and then we have a bunch of fours. My mom's big thing is she's still old school. If you shoot her an email, she's , she'll respond to , it's like, I want you to come in and talk to me. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , she's not gonna let you do it the phone call . So yeah. It's like, Hey, if you come down and you show your face, you and she , she pretty much, if you come down and show your face, she's not gonna turn you down.
Speaker 2And it's so important for kids, especially to , to learn that skill.
Speaker 3It's a great learning opportunity. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2<affirmative> . Um, talk a little bit about C B D and, and what you've done in that realm.
Speaker 3Okay . Um, so just being in the candy industry, we'd go to different trade shows and we'd run into our friends and different people. And with Colorado being one of the first to , to legalize marijuana , um, everyone was asking, you're Colorado, are you doing that? Right. And it's not, it wasn't necessarily something we wanted to venture out with until I started, I started doing a bunch of research and if you do marijuana, you're, you're really held back to, only in Colorado you start making a marijuana product. This is, if you get licensing, you make a marijuana product, you aren't allowed to make anything else. Like you couldn't make a regular gummy, you couldn't make a nutraceutical gummy. You're just li strictly limited to making a marijuana t h c product. So I looked at that and actually I sat down, my dad and I sat down and had been talking with city council members and we were about to get a license to do that. And I ended up not doing it. And when you bring up C B D, we went with C B D 'cause the farm bill had just passed. This was probably 2017, 2018. And with C B D, with the farm bill passing, you could, it could go any state. So it weren't held down to just Colorado. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So that kind of opened up the doors and back to the Tana family, the guys that made our continuous cook
Speaker 2From the Netherlands.
Speaker 3From the Netherlands , um, my , the , the crazy Dutch guys <laugh> , um, they're actually, that's what they specialized in. So they make all the big machines for Jelly Belly and they're really good at making all these different , um, gummy machines. And they, they actually made a new company. Their two sons, actually their three sons , uh, made a new company as we ventured off and made hybrid confections, my brother and dad and myself , um, they made another company called O T C over the counter , um, machines. We ended up making a , they made , they made a gummy machine where you can infuse C B, D or any other active, and we started doing C B D and it actually took off and is doing great for about two years. And then C B D just died as everyone's seen. It was a huge craze and it's just no longer a thing. So we had to switch gears. And now this company where we found out a little a niche , um, doing, it's called nutraceutical gummies. It's anything below a pharmaceutical, so an apple cider vent or gummies, ashwagandha, melatonin, anything from mushrooms, the legal kind of mushrooms, not , not the fun ones. Um, but we've really changed gears and getting in doing that, we're doing 'em for Sprouts and a little bit with Vitamin Shop . Um, but it , it's been , it's been, it's been a huge learning experience transitioning from the C B D to this nutraceutical world. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Because if , I mean , if you go to the grocery store, I'm sure you've seen all the different , um, gummy Yeah . Supplements that you can get. Yeah . Anywhere from vitamin C to sleep gummies to heartburn to collagen to,
Speaker 2And so that is, that's something you're hoping to expand going forward? I mean,
Speaker 3I mean that's what we've Oh , expand that company. Yeah . Um, we are, we're currently expanding there right now. There'll be a new building going up there and , but it should be built by December. That's more for warehousing, not production. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 2Are those produced in the downtown facility now? Nope .
Speaker 3Those an offsite facility. It's right there. Um, it's unmarked. It's right there right across from north of the , uh, uh, fire department there. I'll take you down there. You can check it out. Okay.
Speaker 2Gosh, I'm gonna get the whole tour. I ,
Speaker 3I'm really excited. Yeah . If we get rock in that gummy line, we can make about 600,000 gummies in five days.
Speaker 2Wow. Cool. So you go to trade shows and learn new techniques all the time. Connect with other candy makers.
Speaker 3It's , I , um, so my brother does a lot more of the trade sales , uh, shows. 'cause they're a lot of sales. I go to one or two a year. Um , and it's not necessarily more new techniques. Um , we're not trying to reinvent the wheel . I think my dad ventured out and tried to make a lot of different candies and we found TOFFEE's our go-to mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I've been kind of take , I'm the guy that's been taking more and more skews away. I think you can get people distracted. I think if you're good at one thing, you just stick with it and really drive it home. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And we've been seeing a lot of success with that. But going to the trade shows, it's real, my , my dad calls it fog in the mirror. It's like, you , you gotta be here. Um , I'm not poo-pooing 'em , but sometimes we don't get a ton out of 'em . But I mean, if you're, if you're out there selling and Costco's walking around and they don't see out there like, oh, where's Strom ? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . But I mean, we , we go to these trade shows where we are, we're a little guy out there compared to the Mars, the Jelly Bellies and the Hershey's the
Speaker 2Right. But so much better. So much better. <laugh> . Thank you. Yeah. Uh , well, Doug, is there anything else that you would like to share with us , uh, about Grand Junction or the company or , um, yeah, speak to our listeners.
Speaker 3No, I'm just, I, my dad, his goal, my dad's goal was to create a business. To have his sons want to come back and not only be big enough but to want to work for, and my brother and I both went to Denver University and I graduated , um, with general business degree. And I wasn't sure I was gonna come back right away, but I graduated in 2008 and that was a time a lot of people were laying off more than their hiring. And I'd gone through quite a few interviewing processes, but, and I was , I just realized I wanted to come back and started working here in Grand Junction. And right when I came back I was like leaving Denver. And Denver at that time was the place to be. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . So it was really hard for me . And I think I was probably, this is 2010, so I was in my twenties and in your twenties you want to be in Denver. All the , you got all the sports teams , everything fun was going on and through between now and then, it just, this, see, the difference in Grand Junction is just mind blowing . It's actually fun. It was still fun, but it's act it's a lot more fun now to see all the success we're having, all the new development, the people's interest into wanting to come here, what the university's doing. Um , I mean, you're , you're involved with the real estate. I mean, it's just night and day, what it was , what it was 15 years ago.
Speaker 2It is. And I think instrument is a big part of that. So I think when people see a nationally recognized company having as much success as you do, it's inspiring and say, if they can do it here, so can I. So
Speaker 3Thank you. Yeah. I think a lot, a lot of it has to do with, I think I'm glad we passed the bond for the new school. I think that's be a huge thing. Um, with , with that one in the past , I don't know what would happen, but that's really one of the big drivers to get these bigger businesses coming out here that they want to have a place where their , their kids can get a good education in the hospital. And I mean, we got the rec center passed . I think that was big. I I I just think we're finally on a trend here , um, with our, our, our people here voting. Yes. I think we had a long streak there where everyone was afraid of change. Yeah . And they didn't want to vote any of these new tax increases. And , and I think, I , I don't think I know that this happening. There's gonna be a huge uptick in everything. I hope people will see that we can keep on that trend. Yeah,
Speaker 2I agree. So if people want to order online , uh, strom.com ,
Speaker 3Strom.com
Speaker 2And um, yeah. Go order online or go down to the store and you can have stuff shipped all around the world and
Speaker 3Come , come down and see us. We free , I will
Speaker 2Free looking forward to a tour free
Speaker 3Example and I , I owe you a tour and come , come see what we do. It's , I'd love it. It's , it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2Alright . Thank you very much for joining us today, Doug. Uh , it's been a pleasure. All right .
Speaker 3Thanks for having me .
Speaker 2Thanks everybody for tuning in to the Full Circle podcast. Thanks to Doug Simmons Jr . Uh , and , uh, patronize Strom , please. Great company, great product. And we'll see you next time on the full circle. Thanks for listening. This is Kristy Reese signing out from the Full Circle Podcast.