BOYER CANDY CO. Confectioner predicts a sweeter future as company recovers from family dispute

Back from the brink, Boyer Candy sees a sweet future.
ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) -- Boyer Candy Co., the sweets maker once trapped in a bitter fight to stay alive, appears to have dodged a meltdown.
The Altoona confectioner is on a five-day production schedule for the first time in months, churning out its coveted Mallo Cups, Smoothies and peanut butter cups.
Although production is still spotty, it is an encouraging sign for a company that at this time last year had been shut down for six months as a divided family fought for control of the chocolate vats inside.
The privately held business has experienced 20 percent to 23 percent growth each month since it began making candy again in August, company officials said.
"We're still on thin ice and about a quarter pound from falling through," Roy Mollomo, Boyer's chief operating officer, said. "But I think for the first time we've again established credibility, and when you're making candy, that's everything."
Legal matters
A year ago this week, a judge ousted the chief executive of Boyer in a scathing review of the company's finances. He gave Mollomo, a businessman with experience helping troubled companies, the job of reviving Boyer.
Boyer's legal troubles began soon after company president Anthony Forgione died after open-heart surgery in 2001. The Forgione family had bought Boyer in 1984, and after his death, Anthony Forgione's former wife sued to oust the chief financial officer and regain trusteeship and control over company shares she contended she was forced to give up under duress.
The two ensuing years of legal maneuvering set two Forgione children against their mother and a younger sibling. Creditors were spooked enough that funding dried up. Eventually, Boyer stopped making chocolate, coconut and most of the other treats for which it had built a reputation during its 70-year history.
To re-establish credibility with consumers and retailers, Mollomo has reintroduced some of the higher-quality ingredients used in the original 1934 recipes formulated by the two brothers who founded the company during the Great Depression.
He also began selling a new line of chocolate and peanut butter pretzels, part of a broader strategy to win new, younger converts who might not be familiar with the brand.
"Since they've been producing, we can't keep it on the shelves. It's been that way for months. There's just something about Boyer," said Alan Corso, a manager and bookkeeper for Candy-Rama, a Pittsburgh-area chain of candy stores.
Company history
Brothers William and R.J. "Bob" Boyer started their namesake company in the early 1930s selling candy door-to-door. They sold the business in 1969 to American Maize Products, a corn syrup manufacturer, which later sold to the Forgiones.
Boyer once sold candies up and down the East Coast and as far west as the Mississippi River. It is only now making its way back on shelves in Pennsylvania, Ohio, some parts of New York, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Mollomo said the workers kept the company alive. But Mollomo is the one with thank-you cards on his desk signed by dozens of workers, praising him for bringing back Boyer Candy and saving their jobs.
Many workers on the floor and front office have been with Boyer for decades, but only now are talking about how relations with former executives were strained to the breaking point.
Dave Hainley, a plant manager who has been with Boyer for 44 years, still walks among the vats and conveyor belts in the 12,000 square-foot production area like a kid in a candy store.
"I was never asked about how things were done. We just did what we were told, and we were on the edge all the time," he recalled. "People don't have to go up to the offices anymore. Roy comes down here every morning. People would ask where he was if he didn't."
Candy growth
Regardless of current diet trends, candy consumption continues to grow 1 percent to 3 percent each year, with a good chunk of that money going toward "nostalgia" brands like Clark Bars, Sugar Daddys, and -- Boyer hopes -- Mallo Cups and Smoothies.
"A lot of the profits in the market are in the single-serving candy bar area," said Leonard Teitelbaum, managing director of research at Merrill Lynch. "Can these smaller companies survive? I think the answer is a qualified yes. They carry a lot of power on the convenience-store shelf, where people sometimes reach for comfort."