BUSINESS BUZZ
Sweet history by Michael J. DeCicco
For Dorothy Cox Candies, the premier candy maker in the South Coast, holiday seasons never end.
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alentine production season starts the day after New Year’s. Easter season opens on February 15, right after Valentine's Day. Owner Francis Cox, Jr., 59, says that around Valentine’s Day the factory produces approximately 2500 chocolate-covered strawberries and 150-300 pounds of butter crunch candies and 400-500 pounds of chocolate per day. When Easter season starts up, the factory produces 65,000 pounds worth of chocolate Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies, weighing from one ounce to 35 pounds. At Easter time, the bunnies, Cox said, are his biggest seller. Cox says he uses up to approximately 250,000 pounds of chocolate a year. The chocolate comes to him in the form of 50-pound cases loaded with 10 large rectangular chocolate bars each. The bars are melted in large mixing bowls
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When Easter season starts up, the factory produces 65,000 pounds worth of chocolate Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies, weighing from one ounce to 35 pounds then poured into molds that are placed in large walk-in coolers to harden. The butter crunch is a result of mixing butter and sugar in large, copper kettles and then laying the mixture on a metal table until it hardens just enough to be cut into butter crunch pieces. While Cox candies are sold at the factory store at 100 Griffin Street in
March 2022 | The South Coast Insider
Fall River, and its Fairhaven store at 21 Berdon Way, Francis said 80 percent of the facility's output is sold to other companies nationwide. He said that branch of the Cox Candies corporate tree makes him especially proud of the reputation the family business has established.
Where Easter Bunnies are born
The company started in 1928 when its namesake, Francis's great aunt Dorothy Cox, was fired from her job as a secretary in a local factory during the Great Depression because her boss believed her job should go to a man. Dorothy started making chocolates at her house and selling them Saturdays at a New Bedford farmers' market. From those humble beginnings the product's reputation and popularity grew.
