Peeps are 60 years old, but they're only just reaching their prime. With new spinoff products and marketing focus, it's a ripe time for the yellow?marshmallow?chicks.
Peeps at 60 ? new spinoff products, new marketing focus, new life, owners say.
Associated Press
EnlargeIt's Easter morning. A boy rouses his younger brother, and they run to the living room to find their baskets filled with ? what else? ? Peeps.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
"Peeps are THE candy of Easter," the excited boy tells his wide-eyed sibling, who pops a yellow marshmallow chick in his mouth.
"You can eat 'em, smash 'em, microwave 'em, deep fry 'em, roast 'em on a stick," the boy explains. That's not all. You can make "historically accurate Peeps dioramas ... Peeps pop art ... You can make a Peeps topiary." On he goes, all day and night. "Peeps jousting ... hide-and-go Peeps ... Peepshi ... that's sushi made out of Peeps."
As the storied candy brand celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, Peeps' first TV ad in a decade captures an essential truth about the spongy confection made of sugar, corn syrup and gelatin: Love them or hate them, people do all sorts of things with Peeps, only some of which involve giving them to kids at Easter or eating them straight from the box.
And they're not shy about sharing.
"Everyone seems to have a Peeps story," says Ross Born, third-generation operator of Just Born Inc., which hatches 5 million Peeps a day at its plant 60 miles north of Philadelphia. "And they are free and willing to talk about how they eat their Peeps, how they cure them, how they store them, how they decorate with them. And these are adults!"
Just Born calls it the "Peepsonality" of consumers who buy Peeps not only to eat, but also to play around with.
"If you had asked me about this 25 years ago, I would've been rather bewildered about the whole thing," Born confesses. "We were candymakers."
Not that he's complaining. Just Born had its best year financially in 2012.
His grandfather, Russian immigrant Sam Born, started the candy company out of a Brooklyn storefront 90 years ago. Born advertised the freshness of his product with a sign that said "Just Born." The name stuck.
The burgeoning business moved to Bethlehem and acquired the Peeps brand with its 1953 purchase of Rodda Candy Co. of Lancaster. Best known for its jelly beans, Rodda had also introduced a small line of marshmallow chicks and bunnies, employing dozens of women who hand-squeezed them out of pastry bags. "It was really very difficult, and these women were strong," said David Shaffer, Sam Born's nephew and co-CEO along with Ross Born.
Ross's father, Bob Born ? a physicist and engineer by training ? automated the process in the mid-1950s, and a version of the machine he invented is still in use today, extruding millions of those familiar shapes on peak-Peep production days.
The company, whose other brands are Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike, and Goldenberg's Peanut Chews, has never suffered an unprofitable year. But its growth has always been relatively slow, steady and controlled, and a few years ago, Born and Shaffer decided they wanted to accelerate it.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/MXobA_9-uiY/Peeps-at-60-show-no-sign-of-slowing-down
sundance film festival the flintstones etta james ufc on fox evans vs davis fast times at ridgemont high fast times at ridgemont high
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন