Notes

EDITOR'S NOTE: Perhaps this post should have been called True Confessions as my sister, Susanne Anderson, has once again pulled back the curtain on life in the family business. As usual, it is written with her wonderful blend of irreverence, humor and heart.

My family loves notes. Here’s a great example, the catalyst for this blog post.

This is a note written on our daily cooking board explaining the different firmnesses that our caramels are cooked to.

I’m not sure where this habit came from, because Anderson notes aren’t limited to reminders or instructions to be tossed away five seconds after they serve their purpose. These notes can be written on anything, put anywhere and, most importantly, only God, or your preferred deity, knows how long they will stay up.

Did my grandfather write notes to himself like these? And if so, did he pick it up from his father? Have notes stuck in prominent places been an integral part of our business since its inception? Or longer? So many questions, so few answers. If only these walls could talk. I imagine they would know, since they’ve known my family and our notes since 1926.

I think my dad currently has the worst note problem. He writes notes daily and often re-writes the same notes. His computer is filled with these notes with file names like, well, this, a small sampling:

The employees also know that the best way to contact my dad is through notes, like these:

My uncle had a pretty bad note problem, too. Though he hasn’t worked here on a daily basis in a few years, his notes still adorn the walls and refrigerators all over the building. (Be sure to note the date on the second one – 2004!)

The note fad has even spread to my little brothers. Here’s a note by Aaron, my youngest brother, reminding Tracy Anderson, his mom, just how “awsome" he is:

I’m a big human note fan myself.

And now that I work more around food, I notice myself becoming more and more like my dad, writing virtual notes to myself.

Even Katie, my sister, has started to catch onto the craze.

So why do we keep up the note craze, and maybe more importantly, why don’t we get rid of them once their use has past?

My guess is that it has something to do with the philosophy of our business and family in general: tradition, like these notes, reminds us who we are. They give us guidance, remind us of our standards and connect us with the ones we love.

They're comforting and they push us to be our best. My uncle may not work here daily anymore, but we’re reminded of his presence (and demand for perfection!) every day.

And after hunting around the shop for these notes and pondering their usefulness and place in the grand scheme of running a business, I only ended up taking half of them down.

P.S.
(As a side note, when asked about the note craze, Tracy Anderson, Leif Anderson's wife, after explaining that they are comforting and guiding, said, "Getting into your dad's head, I think he leaves them up as proof that he's being productive.")

Wascally Wabbits

EDITOR'S NOTE: One of my favorite things about working at the candy store is working with my sister because no matter how many years we do the work together she continues to have me doubled over in laughter with her funny observations and inner monologues. Here's a peek into some of the fun I get to have every day.



When spring arrives and the Easter bunny starts calling, at the candy shop that means one thing: it’s rabbit season.

Every day of production we have at least one person (and as many as three) devoted solely to making our solid chocolate rabbits. We use metal molds that fasten together with small clamps until the chocolate solidifies and a new bunny is born.

I’ve been lucky enough to be the head of bunny production in the past, but this year that duty falls to one of our lovely employees, Beth. She has the privilege of spending 40 hours a week devoted to clamping, filling, unclamping, trimming and packaging hundreds of chocolate rabbits.

With three people, this job isn’t too bad. It’s even relaxing. With two, it’s still pretty good. Chatting the day away while filling molds with delicious chocolate. Not bad.

It’s those days when you’re the only person in the bunny room when the bunnies start to get to you and they begin to take on lives of their own.


There’s Alice, of course, who is the most stuck up chocolate there is. She’s the only human form we make and she thinks this makes her better than the rest. And her rabbit friend? He doesn’t even have a name.






Peter is the public’s favorite, but he’s hiding a big secret. He may look like an innocent schoolboy, but he’s really an undercover detective sent from the government to discover our chocolate secrets.







There’s only one real Lamb with Bell, the rest are just clones (but we’re not telling which one is the original).








And then there’s Smooth Fat Standing Rabbit. Poor, poor Smooth Fat Standing Rabbit. He has self-image issues and he’s not very confident, because whenever anyone talks about him, they call him fat.







And to think, next to his counterpart, Large Smooth Standing Rabbit, he looks tiny.

But nobody would dare call Large Smooth Standing Rabbit fat. Nobody.

Chocolate, Beer & Adventure Gear!

EDITOR'S NOTE: In this entry, I will recap the events of March 1, 2012. The first Chocolate, Beer and Adventure Gear Night in Richmond, to benefit the American Cancer Society.

My great-grandfather Arthur Anderson moved his business, Anderson's Candy Shop, out to the tiny Village of Richmond back in 1926. He picked the hamlet based on a hot-tip from one of his wife's friends.

Richmond, she said, was going to be the next boom town!

Well, let's just say that we are still waiting on the boom.

The population was measured to be 1,091 at the 2000 U.S. Census.

So, when you are situated in a beautiful little town like we are, but you want to attract more customers than might naturally stroll past your door, you learn to creatively think.

For us this has meant a Facebook page, website and touring with local county fairs. But this winter, the folks over at Antioch Fine Wine & Liquors in the next town over and our neighbors at 2K Adventure Gear came to us with a new idea.

They proposed we combine marketing and products for a good cause and invite everyone who shopped at our stores.

They wanted to host a free tasting event/fundraiser.

We immediately settled on the American Cancer Society as benefactor.

Each of our respective families had been touched by cancer in some way and on a personal note, my mother died of multiple organ failure due to cancer back in March of 2009.

With that settled, we planned our free chocolate and beer tasting event.

2K Adventure Gear would host so that guests could wander around the store while they sampled, peering into tents and trying out kayak paddles as they mulled about.
Larry over at Antioch Fine Wine would bring the craft beers and we would supply the chocolates.

The whole thing was free but we asked for a donation at the door the night of the event and also sold raffle tickets for a chance to win even more chocolate, beer and adventure gear giveaways. :)

And, at the end of our first Chocolate, Beer & Adventure Gear Night, we had raised $350 which was sent to the American Cancer Society.

Also, we had raised awareness of our businesses. What more could you ask for?!

In closing, if you were one of the folks who ventured out Thursday, March 1 to our first Chocolate, Beer and Adventure Gear night, we sincerely thank you.

We hope you had a great time, and want you to know that you made a difference in helping us to raise that $350!

Groundhog Day

EDITOR'S NOTE: This week, fans of Bill Murray and Harold Ramis' 1993 romantic comedy 'Groundhog Day' celebrated 20 years since the movie was filmed. The anniversary was extra special for us because our candy store was featured in the film! The following was published Feb. 3, 2012 in the The Northwest Herald of Crystal Lake, Ill. I'd describe the column (written by myself) as one part reminiscing and one part discovery. Read it and you'll understand :)


RICHMOND – I always get excited when someone brings up Harold Ramis’ 90s classic, “Groundhog Day.”

I love the movie.

It is one of the very first films I ever saw in a theater. Also, Bill Murray’s sardonic portrayal of TV weatherman Phil Conners stuck repeating the same day over and over again is perpetually funny to me.

What really gets me excited, though, is the fact that my family’s business appears in the film.

For about 26 seconds, immediately following the scene in which Conners delivers a ridiculous toast to “World Peace,” and during the scene in which Rita (Andie MacDowell) and Conners talk about white chocolate and the feeling of dejá vú, my family’s business – Anderson’s Candy Shop – is the set. Well, sort of.

You see, Anderson’s Candy Shop is located in Richmond – about 15 miles from Woodstock where, in 1992, crews with Columbia Pictures turned the downtown into a replica of Gobbler’s Knob, Penn., to shoot the film.

The legendary 26 seconds wasn’t actually filmed in our candy shop. The script for “Groundhog Day” called for a good old-fashioned candy shop as the setting for one of the film’s scenes. Since downtown Woodstock did not have a candy store that fit the bill, we were invited to set up a fake shop and be featured in the movie.

I was about 7 years old at the time and completely oblivious to the “big-timers,” as my dad, Leif Anderson, called the people who first asked us to provide props.

All I knew was that my dad took us up to the Woodstock Square one day to show us some fake snow and, more importantly, that my family’s business, my family and in a twice-removed-sort-of-way I myself, were going to be in a film.

I was excited then and I still am now.

Curious to me until recently, however, was the fact that neither my father nor my uncle have ever seemed as excited. Until a few nights ago, when I interviewed them for background on this column, I never understood why.

My uncle, Lars Anderson, called being involved in “Groundhog Day” an “interesting process.”

My dad explained what the family and the business actually had to do.

“We had to decorate an entire store and produce enough candy to set it up as if it were a real operating candy shop,” he said.

“We put up historic photos from our then-74 years in business and had to keep it set up like that for a month while they were shooting various shots,” he continued.

I also learned that our business trained extras to act like real candy shop employees. When filming was over, we did all of the cleanup and had to put the unrented space back into the shape we found it in.

After I further quizzed the patriarchs on their brush with Hollywood, I came to realize why the 26 seconds had been so huge for me and why it was lackluster for them.

I had no expectations for the film, or our part in it.

When I first saw “Groundhog Day” in the theater, I was thrilled to recognize the candy that I loved and to see sepia-toned photos of my grandfather and great-grandfather on the wall of a real scene in a real movie – no matter how brief the scene.

It was such a big deal to me. In fact, I remember sitting in the Genoa Theatre (formerly in Genoa City, Wis.) and watching the movie twice just to get a second glimpse.

For Dad and Lars, though, the 26 seconds was a letdown.

“I have to admit, we were horribly crestfallen to see how little exposure there actually was for us,” Lars said.

“For the amount of work we put in and the expense the filmmakers went to ... we were imagining we would be featured more. But really it was not any different than being silverware on a table in a restaurant in a movie,” he said.

Even though our shop provided props and our name, “Anderson’s Candy Shop,” was actually visible in the film, when the movie first came out, most people looked up Anderson’s candy store in western Pennsylvania, rather than us.

Looking back on the film with fresh eyes, I understand now my dad and uncle’s muted-enthusiasm to our involvement in the movie. And I wonder if other local businesses deal with the same mixed emotions.

However, even after finding all this out, for me, that 26 seconds (and the film in general) is still something to get excited about.

Have a memory you'd like to share? Email Katie at AndersonsCandyShop@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Foiling a credit card scam, chocolate, and Vietnam

EDITOR'S NOTE: Typically, my father Leif is in the newspaper for one of two reasons - our chocolate has been awarded; or, as a local businessman and active citizen, he's sounding off at a town meeting about traffic patterns, development, etc. This is a bit different ... Dad recently alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigations to a credit card scam! The following was published last week in the The Northwest Herald of Crystal Lake, Ill.

Chocolate for Vietnam? Richmond candy shop targeted in scam

By SARAH SUTSCHEK - ssutschek@shawmedia.com

RICHMOND - The first order for chocolates to be sent to Vietnam was odd. But by the fifth or sixth, Leif Anderson knew something was up.

“Vietnam is a problem any time of year because of temperatures,” said Anderson, who owns Anderson’s Candy Shop in Richmond.

Even if the chocolate is headed to a cooler area, there’s no guarantee that it won’t go through a more tropical area depending on the route.

Fifteen orders to be shipped to Vietnamese cities came in around Christmas under 15 different names from locations across the United States. Canada, as well. The total was between $1,300 and $1,400.

It was a credit card scam, and with some detective work on his own, Anderson was able to track down 13 of the 15 credit-card holders. Only two of them knew their information had been stolen.

Anderson said he had the credit-card holders’ names and ZIP codes. They were of different demographics: young, old, male, female, American, Canadian.

One of the scam’s targets was a high school junior whose mother answered the phone and insisted that her kid didn’t have a credit card.

The mom found out otherwise, Anderson said.

“Two of them were upset that I could get their information and thought I was the one trying to steal their credit card,” Anderson said. “I said, ‘No, I already have your credit card.’ Later, they all called back and were thankful.”

Anderson didn’t fill the orders, and the charges ended up being reversed, he said.

“If they notify their credit-card company, they’re not liable, which is the reason I was trying to get through to them,” he said.

The scam was sophisticated enough that fake phone numbers were used, as well as fake email addresses that would reply when confirmation was sent.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice declined to comment on any specific case, but said that without a financial loss, there is no federal prosecution.

“We have so many cases like this,” Rice said. “There has to be a substantial economic loss to one or more individuals.”

The FBI also doesn’t have jurisdiction to conduct an investigation outside the United States, Rice said.

“If a fraudulently purchased item goes somewhere outside the U.S., we have to rely on the local law enforcement in the affected country,” he said.

But a scam involving chocolate was a new one to him.

“They could have been testing to see if the credit cards would go through, but that’s really the only thing I can think of,” he said.

The idea had occurred to Anderson, who was wondering where the profit is in such a scam.

“It’s very puzzling,” he said. “We’re all very suspicious here now. If something doesn’t smell right, you always check first.”

A bittersweet Christmas story

EDITOR'S NOTE: From time to time we hand deliver chocolate for our customers. Dad recently rushed from his busy schedule at the cooking room over to a local Cub Scout meeting to deliver a very special box of candy as a Christmas surprise. My sister Susanne gives a brief recap below. Merry Christmas.

About a week ago Joe Kalisek, a Ranger in the U.S. Army, contacted us at Anderson's via email.

He is stationed in Afghanistan and asked if we would deliver a box of chocolates to his wife at a local Cub Scout pack meeting since he could not do it himself.

Although Joe previously thought that he would be able to come home for Christmas, he recently learned that he will not be coming home until spring.

To help his wife Ivy cope, he wanted us to surprise her with a personally delivered present and message from him.

Leif, my dad, just so happens to have three sons in the same Cub Scout pack as Ranger Joe so, of course, he said yes! (And definitely would have even if his sons had not been at the same meeting.)

It was a very emotional experience for all of us -- Dad gets teary eyed while presenting the candy to Ivy.

And, with Joe's permission, we video taped the moment to share.

Here's a video clip of dad presenting Ivy, with her gift.

Ivy, we are so sorry that you have to be away from your husband this Christmas.

We hope those chocolates remind you how much you are loved.

And Ranger Joe, we thank you for your service and wish you a safe and speedy return home!

Merry Christmas!

Understanding the real magic

EDITORS NOTE: Today's entry is from my sister Susanne Anderson (pictured at right). She writes about transitioning into a fulltime role at Anderson's Candy Shop and how the move has given her a new perspective on the magic that happens inside 10301 Main Street. I think that the second half of this entry really describes what it feels like when you grow up into a family business.

I’m going to be honest with everyone right now, and it might hurt a little: growing up in a chocolate factory is nothing like what you saw in that Willy Wonka movie.

Ok, ok, it sort of is, but not in the way you might think. There are no chocolate rivers, no psychedelic boat rides and no little people that produce the chocolate – though sometimes, it’s true, we do break out in song.

No, these things don’t exist, but growing up here, it did feel like magic.

Just walking through the cooking room (aptly named, for this is where all of the caramel, cream and other candy centers are cooked) was enchanting.

There was always a cook, whether it was my father, my uncle or one of the various assistant cooks, stirring a huge, boiling batch of sugar turned into something even more delicious.

I didn’t know as a child exactly what everything was, but I loved watching the process. Dad pour boiling sugar out onto a cool marble and somehow – somehow – this turned into the caramels and fudges and peanut butter creams I loved so much.

Then there was the molding room (aptly named, for this is where all of the molded chocolates are made). I often saw my grandmother here, tapping the bubbles out of the chocolate after it had been poured into the bunny rabbit or Christmas tree shaped molds, and then trimming the excess chocolate off of the edges once the chocolate had hardened.

If I brought my friends to this room for a tour they always marveled at the large cylindrical melters holding hundreds of pounds of chocolate.

The packing room (where all of the chocolate pieces get packed into boxes) is probably the closest thing to Willy Wonka that we have. It is an entire room filled with chocolates just waiting to be consumed.

As a child, I didn’t understand the complicated business my elders were part of, but I did know this place was spectacular -- not only because what we made was delicious and unique, but because being here meant family.

The candy store often culminated everything a child could want: loving people making delicious, beautiful treats that you often got to eat.

I am not a child any longer. And over the past year, I have begun to work at the store much more to learn about this place in a new way.

I can now transform those boiling kettles of sugar and make melty chocolate into molded rabbits and snowflakes and more.

And although this means that there isn’t magic here for me anymore, my eyes have been opened to something else. I now see all of the hard work that every employee puts in, and I see the lasting effects of a lifetime of hard work from those before us.

Throughout my entire life, my father has been incredibly passionate about this business and these chocolates and until now, I have not understood how a person can stay so passionate for so long about the same thing.

But, when you are a part of every piece of the process from purchasing supplies to cooking, to packaging and selling – how can a person not become emotionally involved?

And I finally, do understand just how superior our products are. Every caramel batch, for instance, is tested by hand. By hand! That means we don’t just cook our caramels to a certain degree and say, “Eh, they’re good enough.” We test every single batch of candy before it is even completed to make sure our product is the absolute best it can possibly be.

Now I’ve caught myself going into seller mode – but that’s the thing I’ve realized. When my father speaks about the candy shop with such fervor that it sounds like he’s trying to sell one person the whole business, not just a caramel bar, it’s because he so completely believes in what we do here.

And that’s true for all of the people that work here. Now, including me.

We might not have the magic that Willy Wonka has, but we certainly have the same drive and the passion for our trade, and for producing something that will delight others.

Today, when I see my three little brothers here at the candy store, it harkens me back to my childhood and how magical this place can be.

It the dream of all three of my brothers to work at the candy shop when they are older and I hope that one day they can be where I am now, looking at this business not just from the perspective of a child who believes in magic, but from the perspective of an adult who is amazed at learning how much life goes into the production of a small piece of chocolate.