Brach's Confections Holding, Inc. history

In 1866, when Emil was seven years old, the Brachs moved with their six children to the United States, settling in the riverside city of Burlington, Iowa.

Also born in Germany, Florentine had two brothers, Gustav Bunte and Ferdinand Bunte who would later team up with Charles A. Spoehr to open a small retail and wholesale candy shop on State Street in 1876 named Bunte Brothers and Spoehr.

Annual candy consumption in the United States had been 2.2 pounds per person in 1880.

German immigrant Emil J. Brach was an ambitious 22 year-old when he came to Chicago in 1881 to work for the Bunte Brothers & Spoehr candy manufacturers.

Emil J. Brach married Katherine M. Brach, nee: Katherine M. Cunningham of Harvard, Illinois, on Thursday, September 24, 1885, at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral.

The city’s Germanpopulation (first and second generations) constituted 29% of the population in 1900.

In 1904, Emil J. Brach opened his “Palace of Sweets” at North Avenue and Towne Street in Chicago.

Little is known about that firm or why Brach chose to invest there, but it apparently failed and disappears from the records after 1906.

Frank went on to attend DePaul University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1908.

In 1909, just about two years after the first move, growing sales forced Brach’s to move again, this time to a factory at LaSalle Street and Illinois Street.

Over the next few years, the company leased adjacent and nearby space, reaching capacity for 50,000 pounds of candy production weekly by 1911.

Brach responded to these fears in 1913 by opening a Laboratory of Control, touted as the first candy laboratory in America.

A second factory, at Franklin Street and Ohio Street, was added to the firm in 1915, increasing capacity to 1,100,000 pounds per week.

When the firm incorporated in 1916, Emil J. Brach was elected president and Edwin James Brach and Frank Vincent Brach were elected vice presidents.

By 1918, the company had begun using a “family crest” as its emblem, stamping it onto the company’s wooden pails and boxes.

Bunte Bros. built one of the country’s most modern and efficient candy factories, an acclaimed Prairie School factory on Franklin Boulevard that was said to be the world’s largest candy factory when it opened in 1919.

In 1921, George Williamson opened a 96,000-square-foot factory on Ashland Avenue that produced only Oh Henry! bars, which at the time were his company’s sole product.

In 1922, the company built a large new plant on the city's West Side; this facility, the largest candy factory in the United States, soon employed hundreds of men and women.

In 1923 Brach consolidated operations into a $5 million facility designed by architect Alfred Alschuler at the intersection of Kilpatrick, Ferdinand, and the Beltline railroad tracks.

His wife Katherine M. Brach died on Tuesday, November 4, 1924, at the age of 64.

Brach's sales grew to $7.9 million in 1925, with a net income of more than $1 million.

Franklin Clarence Mars opened Mars’ first large-scale manufacturing operation on Chicago’s West Side in 1929.

Brach's sales dropped as well, to a low of $1.27 million in 1934.

In 1935, an addition to the north was added, giving Brach’s a modern shipping room with a conveyor system for moving tons of candy to trains and trucks.

Nothing about its founder’s German heritage prevented the company from launching its first national advertising campaign in October 1943.

Brach workers won the Army-Navy “E” Award recognizing excellence in production of war equipment and then the White Star for “continued meritorious service.” By June 1945, 428 employees of E.J. Brach and Sons had served in the military, with five killed in action.

The Brach’s 1946 annual yearbook opens its colorful comic-book-style “Story of Brach” with young twelve-year-old Emil at work in Iowa, making no mention of his German birth or immigration.

Emil J. Brach worked vigorously until the day he died in 1947 at age 88.

The true story about this 1948 Chicago yard sign; "4 Children for Sale," and the consequences for some of these children.

Starting around 1950, however, Edwin James Brach and Frank Vincent Brach began reshaping the company’s brand, strengthening its identity as the nation’s leading producer of bulk and bagged candy.

Following his father’s death, Edwin James Brach became president of the company and then, in 1951, chairman of the board and chief executive officer.

Google Books – 1952 Popular Mechanics article “They Make Candy by the Ton” with great color photos.

In 1958 they introduced the signature “Pick-A-Mix” kiosks which are still present in modern supermarkets.

A second, 30-acre site was purchased in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1959.

By the 1960’s Brach’s produced over 500 individual types of candies.

In 1964, Brock constructed a 64,000-square-foot distribution warehouse on the new site.

Edwin passed away at the age of 70 in 1965 leaving his brother Frank in charge.

Frank’s death in 1970 left wife Helen at the helm of the Brach’s candy fortune.

In 1990, sales passed $72 million, bringing a net income of nearly $2.5 million. It moved to a newly constructed production and office facility on its Jersey Pike site in 1976.

Helen Brach visited the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on February 17, 1977 and was never heard from again.

As late as 1980, when Chicago was still America’s “candy capital,” Brach’s was “far and away the biggest general-line maker in Chicago,” producing more than 250 million pounds of candy annually and employing 3,500 workers at its 2.1-million-square-foot factory on the city’s West Side.

In 1981, Brock also became the first American producer of European-style gummi candies.

American Home Products Company sold the Brach’s division to the Swiss corporation Jacobs Suchard in 1986.

In 1987 American Home Products sold Brach’s to european candy and coffee producer James Suchard.

Sales dropped, and the company began posting losses, reaching $50 million in operating losses in 1988, and more than $200 million over the next several years.

It wasn’t until 1989 that a federal investigation into horse racketeering turned the focus to her then lover Richard Bailey.

Principle stockholder Klaus J. Jacobs sold Suchard off to Philip-Morris in 1990, but retained ownership of the Brach’s business units.

In 1991, the factory, now covering 2.2 million square feet, claimed to be the world’s largest, capable of producing more than two million pounds of candy per day.

That purchase was followed by Brock's first international partnership, when the company bought a 30 percent share in Clara Candy, of Dublin, Ireland in 1993.

In 1994, Brach merged with the Brock Candy Co., creating a new company called Brach & Brock Confections Inc., based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In 1995, horse trader and stable owner Richard Bailey was sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiring to murder and soliciting the murder of Helen Voorhees Brach.

Thompson, Stephanie, "Brach Gets Active in Fruit Snacks," Brand-week, March 24, 1997.

——, "Brach's Plots $8M Impact on Fruit Snacks," Brandweek, November 2, 1998.

In early 2001, it announced plans to shutter its Chicago-based manufacturing facility.

The company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2004 amid strong sales, especially during the Halloween and holiday season.

Chicago Tribune – 2005 article on Joe Plemmons involvement in Helen Brach’s disappearance.

After four years without a tenant ML Realty Partners, LLC purchased the vacated Chicago factory in 2008 for redevelopment into a warehouse.

Built at a cost of $5 million (roughly $63.9 million in 2010 dollars), the new building provided about 600,000 square feet of floor space for consolidated production of the company’s 127 different kinds of candy.

In 2012, Brach’s could still claim to be the leading manufacturer of bulk, loose candy in the United States.