The Vintage Candy Company Behind Several Classic Brands

Vintage candies may not receive the wide adoration they used to, but items like Dum Dum lollipops and Necco wafers are still a timeless part of Halloween and trick-or-treating. These and other vintage candies are made, appropriately, by a small-town Ohio company that's been family-owned and operated for over a century.

It might not have the market share of candy-making giants like Hershey, Cadbury, or Lindt, but many products from the Spangler Candy Company are well-known to lots of Americans. Dum Dum lollipops and Bit-o-Honey are perhaps its biggest named products, but if you've ever eaten marshmallow circus peanuts or candy canes during the holidays, there's a good chance they were also made by Spangler.

As a vintage candy company, much of Spangler's business centers on candy-friendly holidays, and it offers Halloween and Christmas-themed candy bundles. But one of the things you might not know about conversation hearts, the chalky Valentine's Day classic, is that we almost lost them forever until Spangler picked up production.

The Spangler Manufacturing Company was founded in 1906 to produce household powders like baking soda, but it first made candy in 1911. The Spangler Cocoanut Ball was successful enough that, in 1920, the company switched production entirely over to candy and adopted its current name.

Perhaps Spangler's most famous original product is its marshmallow circus peanuts. These candies have been around longer than you think, dating back to the late 1800s, but Spangler's popular 1940 version was instrumental in circus peanuts' popularity and longevity.

Much of Spangler's business success, however, came from sound acquisitions. It bought Dum Dum lollipops in 1953 and became the biggest manufacturer of candy canes in 1954, and sales of both became essential to the company. Some acquisitions are less smooth, though. When Spangler bought the manufacturer of Necco wafers in 2018, it closed the factory that made them and Sweethearts. But thankfully, two years later, Spangler brought Necco wafers back from the dead, and they'll be in trick-or-treat bags for years to come.