3 Takeaways from "Candyfreak"

When I was growing up, I liked candy a lot. I have fond memories of going to a nearby store that sold penny candy and figuring out how I wanted to spend my money. I also enjoyed the permissiveness of eating candy on Halloween since, generally, my parents worried about my weight and wanted to limit my candy intake.

But when I recently read Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond, I realized I didn’t hold a candle to his candy obsession. This is particularly true since I don’t eat much candy these days apart from a square or two of dark chocolate in the evenings.

The book covers a lot of ground, and while I’m not going to attempt to talk about all of it, here are three things that particularly struck me.

Candy as self-love

Almond (who fully recognizes how his last name comes across when talking about candy) shared that, for him, candy was a type of antidepressant. Even more than that: “The bottom line is that candy was, for my father and then for me, one of the few permissible forms of self-love in a household that specialized in self-loathing.” (p. 12)

That struck me because that seems to be a reason many people turn to food. They may not always turn to candy, but for a lot of folks, food offers comfort and solace and even a sense of love when they don’t feel particularly lovable.

I know I used candy and other sweets for comfort as a teen and young adult. While I was eating, I could forget about how much I disliked myself – at least, until the guilt and shame about all the eating kicked in. So, I could relate to that part of Almond’s story.

Candy and spies

Normally, when I think about spies, James Bond comes to mind, or other political thrillers involving the CIA or undercover operatives. I don’t really think about candy.

But it turns out that Roald Dahl got it right in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when he wrote about all the trouble Willy Wonka had with spies stealing his candy ideas. It’s odd to think about candy companies being super secretive (even without Oompa Loompas), but Almond explained the three primary reasons why espionage is a factor in candy-making (p. 63):

1.     Recipes and ingredients for candy bars can’t be patented

2.     Since most candy has the same basic ingredients, the differentiating factor lies in how it’s made

3.     Success typically comes from who gets a new idea to the market first

This all reminded me that, as warm and fuzzy as certain candy may make us feel, it’s a rather cutthroat business. Almond pointed out that Hershey even “shreds its marketing plans” (p. 64) to ensure secrecy.

Fair trade and fancy chocolate

Another not-so-great aspect of the candy world is the way chocolate is produced, both historically and currently.

As Almond noted, once Cortez brought cocoa beans back to the King of Spain, the aristocracy was hooked. Because of this, “ships were quickly dispatched to the damp, humid regions of the globe to establish plantations and trade routes. In this way, the people of the Old World established dominion over the people of the New.” (p. 79)

And the plantations still exist, complete with child labor and slavery. It’s hard to get accurate details in some cases because of the previously mentioned secrecy in candy companies, but enough has been documented that these abuses aren’t in doubt.

The good news is that there are options now for chocolate. You can look for fair trade chocolate, which guarantees fair compensation as well as safe working conditions, and it prohibits child labor. Organic chocolate is also an option, since organic practices typically support fair labor.

And some of the best candy is fair trade, as I discovered when I looked into some of the candy bars Almond raved about. The ones he particularly liked are called Five Star bars, made by Lake Champlain Chocolates, a company that’s fair trade certified.

This is what Almond wrote about some of these candy bars:

"I had never tasted anything like the Five Star. Fancy chocolates, truffles and so forth, are one thing. But this was a fancy candy bar, a complex and nuanced marriage of ingredients. There was caramel, obviously, [in the Caramel Bar], but also roasted almonds and nuggets of dark chocolate. It was draped in a thin layer of milk chocolate. The interplay of tastes and textures was remarkable: the teeth broke through the milky chocolate shell, sailed through the mild caramel, only to encounter the smoky crunch of the almonds, and finally, the rich tumescence of the dark chocolate.” (p. 101)

But he especially liked the Hazelnut Bar, and all these descriptions got me curious about these candy bars. Since the book was written in 2004, I wasn't sure these would still be around, but I checked online, and sure enough, they are – the product description for the Hazelnut bars even includes a reference to Candyfreak.

Then I found out that a nearby store carries these candy bars, so I decided to check them out. They’re small, only 2 ounces, and fairly pricey ($4.50/bar), but I have to say that they were excellent. They’re much richer and creamier than Hershey’s, for example, and the peanut bar tasted far more of peanuts than, say, a Snickers bar.

I’ve now finished them, but I ate them slowly, in small pieces, so I could savor them, and if you want to try some fair trade chocolate, you can’t really go wrong with these.

Candy is more involved than expected

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I started reading Candyfreak, but my main takeaway is that the candy world is far more complicated than I would have guessed. And it’s also subject to many of the same challenges as any other business, with the larger companies buying out smaller ones and forcing more specialized companies to close.

But I was encouraged by the fact that the Five Star bars are still around, and this might be one way that the internet has been helpful. With good marketing and fast shipping, these smaller, independent candy-makers who have fancy chocolates and candy bars can reach people all over the country, giving them at least a chance of making it. I hope they continue to do well for many years.