Account- My Cart- Checkout- LogIn

Candy Bar Economics

Why are your candy bars so expensive?

Well, there are several reasons (and it depends on your relative definition of “expensive”). But first of all, let’s compare the basics:

.
Snickers
The Snack’r
DIMENSIONS
3.9″ x 1.2″ x .7″
4″ x 1.25″ x 1
NET WEIGHT
2.07 oz.
4 oz.
INGREDIENTS
milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, lactose, skim milk, milkfat, soy lecithin, artificial flavor), peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, skim milk, butter, milkfat, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose, salt, egg whites, artificial flavor
dark chocolate (cocoa mass, sugar, vanilla, soy lecithin), light corn syrup, pure cane sugar, evaporated milk, peanuts, Ronnybrook cream, fresh egg whites, cultured butter, gelatin, whole vanilla beans, sea salt

Right away, you can see that our bars are much heftier, and contain no artificial ingredients and no hydrogenated oils.

They’re also made by hand; meaning that one of our skilled employees, with specific training and experience, has spent their time making sure your candy bar came out just right. We love our employees, and it’s important to us that we take care of them; that means paying good wages, keeping reasonable hours, and offering health insurance – and all that adds up pretty quickly.

Finally, our candy bars are just a ton of work! Since we do everything by hand, it takes a while from start to finish.

Take our King Bar, for example. Here’s a brief rundown of how a King Bar is assembled:

  1. Butter is browned, and used to make the cookie dough base. The dough is rolled out, cut to size, baked off in sheet pans, and set aside to cool.
  2. Peanut butter nougat is made by cooking sugar syrup to a certain temperature, pouring it over whipping egg whites, and folding in smooth peanut butter at just the right time. The warm nougat is spread over the cooled cookie base.
  3. Fresh bananas are puréed and mixed with white chocolate and cream to form a ganache. The ganache is spread over the cooled nougat, and the whole slab has to set up.
  4. Milk chocolate is tempered. The slab is turned out of the sheet pan and chocolate is spread over the cookie base. Once the chocolate sets, the slab is cut by hand into 1” x 4” bars.
  5. More milk chocolate is tempered. The bars are dipped by hand and allowed to set up; any holes or “bald spots” are fixed up afterwards with a small metal spatula and some more tempered chocolate.
  6. The bars are hand-packaged in cello wrapping and heat-sealed. Boxes are hand-stamped with the “best before” date and folded, and the bars are nestled inside. Finally, the label is wrapped around the box (you guessed it – by hand).

…That’s just for one kind of candy bar. At any given time, we make 15-20 unique products – all by hand, beginning to end. It’s not the most profit-driven way to make candy, but it is the most delicious. We hope you’ll agree!