Ganong Bros., Limited

Company information

• Date founded: 1873
• Industry: Candy company
• Corporate headquarters: St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada
• Type: Private

Overview

Ganong Bros., Limited is the oldest family-owned candy company in Canada. It was founded in 1873 in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, by brothers James and Gilbert White Ganong. The company is primarily known for its chocolates, which include the Pal-o-Mine bar and an interesting combination of cinnamon and chocolate known locally as Chicken Bones. Ganong Bros. was among the first chocolate makers to include artistic designs on its products and introduced the heart-shaped box to North American chocolate lovers in the 1930s. In the twenty-first century, Ganong Bros. remains among the largest candy makers in North America. In 2021, the company revamped its brand and gave its packaging a more modern look.

History

In 1873, Canadian businessperson James Ganong convinced his younger brother Gilbert to invest the $400 he had saved for medical school in a new grocery business. The brothers opened their business in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, a town just over the border from the US state of Maine. By 1876, they added a bakery and confectionary and enlisted the help of two other siblings, renaming the business Ganong Brothers. They opened a soap company in 1879, and by 1885, James had taken over the soap company, and Gilbert remained in charge of the grocery business. In 1886, Gilbert built a three-story confectionary factory in St. Stephen.

By the early 1890s, the company had established a national presence and was one of Canada’s leading confectionary manufacturers. In 1892, the company was incorporated as Ganong Bros., Limited, and two years later, Gilbert Ganong decided to give up the bakery business to focus on making chocolate and other sweets.

Gilbert Ganong’s death in 1917, the company was taken over by his nephew, James’s son Arthur. Under Arthur Ganong’s leadership, the company developed two of its signature products: the Delecto line of boxed chocolates and the Pal-o-Mine bar. Arthur Ganong remained in charge of the company until 1957, when his son Whidden took over. He was succeeded by his nephew David Ganong in 1977. In 2014, David’s daughter, Bryana Ganong, became the first female president in the company’s history.

Since 1985, Ganong Bros. and the city of St. Stephen have held an annual celebration known as Chocolate Fest. The festival and the longstanding presence of Ganong Bros. in the city have inspired St. Stephen to brand itself as Canada’s Chocolate Town. In 1990, the company built a new factory in St. Stephen. Its old factory was converted into a museum, which opened in 1999. The Chocolate Museum features exhibits on the company's history as well as interactive displays on the chocolate-making process.

In 2006, the company underwent a rebrand, developing a new logo that resembled a chocolate-colored oval with a swirled stylized “G” pattern. The logo is a nod to the company’s practice of decorating some of its chocolates with intricate, artistic designs, an innovative style first developed in the late nineteenth century. In 2020, Ganong Bros. again rebranded, this time adopting a red maple leaf—the symbol of Canada—as its logo. The rebrand aimed to make the company's products more relevant for the younger generation.

In the early and mid-2020s, Ganong Bros. remained one of the largest candy companies in Canada and in the top one hundred in North America. The company’s only plant is in St. Stephen, run by around 300 employees. Ganong Bros. products are sold across Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the early 2020s, the company changed how it manufactured its products to make them more allergy-friendly. In 2022, the company partnered with Glenn Cookies, as Glen Cook purchased a substantial stake in the company. In early 2025, the company rereleased the nostalgic candy called Sixlets.

Impact

In addition to being Canada’s oldest family-owned candy maker, Ganong Bros. is also credited with pioneering several industry firsts in North America and Canada. According to company lore, as a young man, Arthur Ganong would take chocolate bars along with him as he went fishing. However, the bars would often melt before he could eat them. In 1898, Ganong and a company chocolatier devised a way to wrap the bars in cellophane, a recently invented material, to make them last longer. This innovative solution led to the company being the first in North America to individually wrap chocolate bars. In the 1910s, the company added fudge and peanuts to one of its chocolate bars, inventing what would become known as the Pal-o-Mine bar in 1920. The Pal-o-Mine bar remains the oldest continuously selling chocolate bar in Canada.

In the 1880s, the company hired American Frank Sparhawk, who had a reputation as a candy-making specialist who could produce highly detailed artistic designs on his creations. At the time, the company was constantly developing new candy styles and flavors. Among Sparhawk’s many creations was a hard cinnamon candy shell wrapped around a soft chocolate center. Sparhawk named the combination Chicken Bones, presumably because the brown insides and pink outer shell resembled a chicken bone. The candy became extremely popular in Canada’s Maritime Provinces, where they are still regarded as a Christmastime staple in the twenty-first century.

In 1895, Ganong Bros. became the first Canadian candy company to make lollipops using wooden skewers as a stick. In the early 1930s, the company became the first in North America to sell its chocolates in a heart-shaped box. The British chocolate maker Cadbury invented the practice in the mid-nineteenth century, but Ganong introduced the concept on the other side of the Atlantic. In the 1930s, candy in a heart-shaped box was seen as a Christmas gift; it was only later that it became synonymous with Valentine’s Day.

In the late 1980s, Ganong Bros. was also the first candy company to use real pureed fruit in its fruit snacks. The company still uses the method to produce its Fruitfull Real Fruit Jellies, which have been made with all-natural fruit since 2013. In 1997, Ganong Bros. also partnered with the American company Sunkist to make several other fruit-flavored products.

Bibliography

“Ganong Brothers.” My New Brunswick, 15 July 2015, mynewbrunswick.ca/ganong-brothers. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

Graham, Alex. “Glenn Cooke Makes ‘Major’ Investment in Ganong.” My New Brunswick, 13 Oct. 2022, huddle.today/2022/10/13/glenn-cooke-makes-major-investment-in-ganong. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“The History of Ganong.” Ganong Bros, ganong.com/our-sweet-story. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Our Company.” Ganong Bros, ganong.com/our-company. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

Ross, Andrew, and Andrew Smith, editors. “Gilbert White Ganong.” Canada’s Entrepreneurs: From the Fur Trade to the 1929 Stock Market Crash, U of Toronto P, 2011, pp. 210–12.

“Sweet 60 2021: The Top Candy Companies in North America.” Candy Industry, 2021, www.candyindustry.com/Sweet-60/2021. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

Wright, Julia. “The Story behind the Weirdest Maritime Christmas Candy.” CBC/Radio-Canada, 24 Dec. 2017, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/chicken-bones-candy-ganong-st-stephen-1.4454303. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.