The Grandmother Who Never Existed: The Fannie May Story

Here's a fun bit of Chicago candy trivia. Fannie May, the Chicago chocolate shop behind the Pixie and the Mint Meltaway, may have started with a grandmother who never existed.

The most popular explanation for the name is that founder H. Teller Archibald wanted customers to picture a sweet, warm, older woman hand-dipping chocolates in her home kitchen. That is a lovely image. It is also marketing. There was no Fannie May standing at a stove. There was a Chicago businessman with a very good idea and a name that sounded like someone's favorite aunt.

(One business history says plainly that no one knows why he picked the name. So take the grandmother story as the best-loved theory, not gospel.)

Who, What, When, Where

Who: Henry Teller Archibald, who went by H. Teller Archibald. According to one account, his wife's family put up the seed money.

When: 1920.

Where: A small shop at 11 North LaSalle Street, in the heart of the Loop.

What: Buttercream candies. Archibald's stated goal was simple: make the best quality candy possible, and always sell it fresh.

It worked fast. By 1935 the company had 47 locations, and it started expanding beyond Illinois that same year. Near the end of the 1930s it bought the property at 1137 W. Jackson Boulevard, which became its home base. The factory at Jackson and Racine kept turning out candy until 2004.

Why Chicago

Fannie May didn't happen in a vacuum. For much of the 20th century, Chicago was the candy capital of America, producing more than double the output of the next closest city, New York. At the industry's peak in the 1960s, more than 100 candy companies employed over 25,000 Chicagoans. That's the world Fannie May grew up in, alongside Ferrara, Frango, Tootsie Roll, and World's Finest Chocolate, all of which are getting their own turn in this series.

The Candy Everyone Remembers: The Pixie

The buttercreams came first. But the one that really put Fannie May in Chicago's collective memory arrived in 1946: the Pixie. It's hand-poured caramel, lightly roasted pecans, and a blanket of chocolate. It became the company's most popular candy up to that point.

The rest of the lineup came along over the decades:

• Mint Meltaway (1963): Dark chocolate and peppermint, finished in chocolate or a pastel green coating.
• Trinidad (1972): A dark truffle center wrapped in a white coating and toasted coconut. The company says the name nods to an island nation known for cocoa and coconut.
• Carmarsh (1992): Caramel, marshmallow, and chocolate.

The World War II Decision

During World War II, sugar and other ingredients were rationed and hard to find. Plenty of candy makers cut corners. Fannie May's took a different route, it closed many stores instead of switching to inferior substitutes. Quality over Quantity.

The Fannie May vs. Fanny Farmer Mix-Up

Almost every Chicagoan has confused these two at least once, and honestly, it's understandable. Fanny Farmer was a separate candy company founded in 1919 by Frank O'Connor, named for Fannie Merritt Farmer, the famous cookbook author known as "the mother of measurements" because she popularized the level teaspoon and cup. The ironic twist is that the real woman spelled her first name "Fannie," while the candy brand spelled it "Fanny."

Ironically, the two brands ended up under one roof. Archibald Candy bought Fanny Farmer in the mid-1990s, creating a chain of more than 330 stores that was billed as the largest candy retailer in the country. The products even had matching twins. The Pixie at Fannie May was the Pecan Dixie at Fanny Farmer. The Mint Meltaway at Fannie May was "French and Frosted Mints” at Fanny Farmer

A Rough Road, Then a Comeback

The 1990s were a growth spree. In 1997 alone, the company licensed the brand to mall kiosks and shopping centers in 30 new markets. The expansion outran the financing, though, and the company ended up in bankruptcy, closing more than 200 stores.

The brand didn't disappear though. In 2004, Alpine Confections bought it out of receivership, folded Fanny Farmer into Fannie May, and moved production to Harry London Candies in Green, Ohio. Fannie May reopened that October with 45 stores. In 2006, 1-800-Flowers bought it for $85 million. In March 2017, the Italian confectioner Ferrero bought it for $115 million. Corporate headquarters stayed in Chicago.

A Few Little-Known Facts

• Fannie May is a holiday business. In the late 1990s, about half of annual sales happened between Thanksgiving and January 1, and the company roughly doubled its workforce for the season.
• The numbers were big. A 1998 Chicago Sun-Times profile said the company made 25,000 to 50,000 pounds of chocolate every day.
• Consumer Reports gave it a nod. In 1996, the magazine rated Fannie May the best value of 11 boxed chocolates it tested, at about $10.50 a pound.
• Fannie May and Ferrara now share an owner. Ferrero bought Fannie May in March 2017 and Ferrara Candy later that same year. Two Chicago sweet-tooth landmarks, one Italian parent company (and no, Ferrero and Ferrara are not the same family).
• Many Fannie May products are certified kosher, and some are made without gluten, milk, eggs, or wheat for people with those allergies.
• Chocolate and romance have long been linked. One industry survey from the late 1990s found 29 percent of American men believed chocolates improved their romantic chances.

Still in the Box

Fannie May has been sold, merged, bankrupted, resurrected, and sold again. It has survived wartime rationing, a corporate expansion that went too far, and a string of owners. And yet the thing you remember is still the thing it started with: a box of fresh chocolates from Chicago, wrapped in a name that sounds like family.

If you left the city years ago, there's a good chance a Pixie will still taste like home. If you never left, you probably already know which one you're reaching for first. Which one is your favorite?