Sweet history

By Michael J. DeCicco

For Dorothy Cox Candies, the premier candy maker in the South Coast, holiday seasons never end.

Valentine 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 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 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.

After Dorothy died in 1944, her brother Joseph, Francis's grandfather, kept the business afloat and growing until 1978. That's when Francis's father, Francis Sr., took over, until he retired in 2018.

Now Francis Jr. has two sons who work there, Brian, 29, and Matthew, 34. (A third son chose another career path as a local firefighter and EMT).

Cox Jr. said he grew up in the Dorothy Cox candy production facility that was then located in Fairhaven. He fondly recalled starting at age 10 in the butter crunch mixing room there, where he learned from his family at an early age the best ways to carry on the family business. The focus, he said, has always been sticking to the same family recipe and maintaining product quality.

Ten years ago the plant moved to Wareham; the Cox family transferred its production operations to Fall River in July 2021.

The family philosophy that has guided him all these years is a simple one: "Make a quality product. Be sure of the quality of the ingredients.” he said. “Don't cut corners. Don't rush it. And that's worked so far."

The future is as much on his mind as the past. The Fall River factory is gearing up to make its own chocolate from scratch. They've stockpiled the ingredients on tall, metal racks: bags of cocoa butter and chocolate liquor. The company is close to getting the right power supply from National Grid for the chocolate making machinery it acquired from NECCO when that company's Revere plant closed three years ago.

He said he is looking forward to adding this feature to the quality of what Dorothy Cox produces. "We're going to be around for a long time to come," Cox said. For more information visit dorothycox. com.