Sweet Candy Company is a food and drink brand headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1892.
Leon Sweet moved his candy company to Salt Lake City in 1900 to be closer to the sugar. He had started it in Portland, Oregon, in 1892, and Salt Lake Magazine says he made the move for better access to Utah's sugar mills. The company still makes its salt water taffy in Salt Lake City, and the nougat gets whipped egg whites, from Sweet's own formula.
Sweet made candy downtown for most of the century before moving in 1999 to a 180,000 square foot plant three miles south of the airport. During Prohibition, the liquor used in the flavorings had to be locked in a vault with every drop accounted for, Rachel Sweet told Salt Lake Magazine. The catalog runs past 250 items, led by taffy and milk chocolate orange sticks.
The family still runs it. Rachel Sweet is vice president of corporate affairs, and her cousin Rick Kay is president and chief executive. Portland can keep the founding date. Salt Lake has had the candy since 1900, though the plant no longer offers public tours. Kay says cinnamon candy is a Western taste: "Distribution stops right around Kansas." Apparently that is where the West ends.
Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber, dropped Sweet's chocolates from his C-54 for children in postwar Germany.
