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Fourth-generation family member Julia Birnn Fields and her husband Mel take over from famed confectioners Jeff and Bill Birnn, anxious to usher in the famed Vermont-based chocolatier into the next centennial.
"In the end, the company has been in the business for 100 years, and customers really appreciate the fact that the fourth generation is taking over," say Julia Birnn Fields.
In just a year as the company's new president, Tracey Massey embraces innovation, flexibility and responsiveness as keys to further growing the company.
"What surprised me when I came in was that we needed to be even more customer focused. We have always been very brand and consumer focused and the biggest change we are making is further driving customer centricity throughout our business," Tracey Massey says.
Michael G. Rosenberg, president and ceo of The Promotion In Motion Cos. and this year’s recipient of the Kettle Award, not only gets close and personal with readers, he also provides them with an aerial view of where the company is headed.
“We learned a lesson,” Rosenberg says. “We were a bit too conservative, too hesitant to expand manufacturing and packaging capacity. So we made it our mandate last year to find a way to do it. And now, we’re back to our normal growth rates.”
It was not a gathering that Jonathan Hart, newly hired chief executive for Thorntons, recalls looking forward to. He had just joined the company in January 2011.
These days you can grab a chocolate bar with almost anything inside. In the past year companies have introduced flavors ranging from marshmallows to ginger to hemp seeds.
Vintage Confections sells hi-end lollipops for $40 in China — a sweet vignette that helps illustrate the global state of the industry for confections: borders are breaking down.