Jelly Belly gets set to take on the world

Thursday, 02 July 2009

Suzanne Callander spoke to Herman Rowland Sr, chairman and CEO of Jelly Belly Candy Co, to talk about the company’s recent expansion initiative Although the Jelly Belly gourmet jelly bean was born in 1976, the company has been active in the sweet making industry since 1869, when Gustav Goelitz, who came to America from Germany in 1867, bought a sweet shop in Illinois, and started to make his own confectionery. Through the years the family continued to dream up new confectionery innovations, expanding into gummies, jelly beans and chocolates in the 1960s.  However, it’s most successful innovation through the years has to be the Jelly Belly gourmet jelly bean which today is available in 50 flavours and is distributed across the globe. The product achieved an early marketing coup, which really helped promote it across the US and the rest of the world, when Jelly Belly beans were endorsed by President Ronald Reagan. When he was on the presidential trail a national US newspaper photographed him eating Jelly Belly beans and this caused a real boost in interest in the product amongst consumers at the time. However, the continuing success of the Jelly Belly beans is attributed to the innovative flavours and the continuing development of new and interesting flavour ideas and to the overall quality of the product. Herm Rowland, chairman of Jelly Belly Candy Co, told me: “We have always had a goal of creating the best possible quality jelly beans. To this end we always use the best ingredients available to us and always use natural flavours where possible. Indeed, we include real fruit purees and juices in many of the beans. Also, we put flavouring into both the centre and the shell of the beans to ensure a really good, long-lasting taste experience. “We have identified a definite difference in regional tastes across the globe,” said Herm. “In Asia we find that the citrus flavours are most well received, while Europe enjoys the sweeter flavours and, maybe are a bit more adventurous too, favouring the more unique flavours such as Pina Colada.” Product development is another important part of the success of the Jelly Belly bean. There is always an interesting new flavour idea on the horizon. “Indeed we have only recently added some new flavours to our global Top 50 – Green Tea, and Guava and Passion Fruit,” Herm told me. “Another new flavour for the company is Chili Mango, which will replace the Jalapeno flavour in the Top 50 flavour line-up.” Moving eastwards Earlier this year the company started shipping product from its new manufacturing plant in Thailand. I was very interested to find out more about this development, so I asked Herm to elaborate further on the company's expansion initiative. He said: “In recent years export sales have been growing quickly and we were finding it logistically difficult to ship product from the US to all the overseas destinations that were demanding the Jelly Belly beans. We needed to find a new manufacturing base which would allow us to streamline the distribution operation.  “The search for a new facility actually started way back in 2005. I was not comfortable with the idea of producing in China, and so this region was rejected early in the process. Luckily, at this time, I spoke to a neighbouring food manufacturer who had set up a manufacturing plant in a self-sufficient industrial park in Thailand. I liked this idea very much!” Herm paid a visit to Thailand and was impressed – by both the industrial park, and the Thai people. The industrial park produced its own power, water and natural gas, “ he said. “I felt comfortable with this. Also, all the people we met in the area were wonderfully accommodating too.” Building the plant was ‘a struggle’ Herm admits. “We had to undergo a sharp cultural and practical learning curve to get things done to our exacting standards. It has been no easy task to teach the new employees how to make our candy, and we needed product from this plant to be as good as we make in the US. To this end, many of our key staff have spent a lot of time in the Thai facility to train the staff in our ways of working! “Building work at the facility continues today, as we are already strangled for space and have already had to employ outside warehousing facilities. We wanted to automate the plant where possible to ensure consistency of product and packaging and also to ensure that we are able to keep up with current, as well as expected future demands.” Currently the existing 50,000 ft2 facility is able to produce between 15 and 20 million lbs of product per year, running on one shift.  When complete – with an expected addition of a further 150,000 ft2 of production area – Herm hopes that the facility will be capable of producing around 30 million lbs per year. Non GMO ingredients Jelly Belly Candy Co regularly has product tested for GMOs and the tests consistently show it to be free. In addition, identity preserved corn starch is used in all locations. The easy availability of non GMO ingredients in the region has been an added bonus resulting from the Thailand initiative. “Everything we produce in Thailand is GMO-free,“ said Herm. “Although this is not a big issue for our US consumers, it is a growing requirement for retailers and consumers across Europe. Our domestic US market will continue to be served by our US-based plants, and we intend to supply Jelly Belly beans to the rest of the world from this new state-of the art facility,” he said. My final question to Herm related to how the company was coping with the current global economic conditions. His answer was upbeat: “We are pretty resilient and are still doing well nationally,” he said. “Demand is still growing, albeit not at the same rate as in the past few years. We need to wait and see what the future holds, but I am pretty confident. We are always on the look out for new opportunities. Our next move will depend on the growth of, and demand for, Jelly Belly beans across the globe. Our new facility, of course, has given us the ability to cope with the expected increase in global demand and, for the first time in the company’s history, we really feel like an international company!”

 

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