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‘Tis the Season, but…
Traditions linger on…for a time. I had a friend, I have been known to call him my Mentor, even though at times the lessons went the other way. Sherm was born on the exact same day as Alex Trebek. He retired from his corporate job back in maybe 1995 to run a couple of small businesses that he and his wife had. We would go up and visit them. They were closer to the country, probably a good sixteen miles north and ten east of us. Their businesses were complementary: an ice cream shop and a candy factory and retailer. The candy had big days from September through May, and the ice cream was big during the summer. At some point, they decided to buy a place for the candy factory. They had intended to keep the ice cream and candy retailer in the same place but their landlord at the old shop got wind they were looking around, so he tripled their rent. They moved into the new factory and took the retail candy business there as well, but closed down the ice cream business. They sold all of the ice cream equipment.
Somewhere along the way, maybe even before Sherm had retired from his corporate job, my wife and I started giving out gifts of half-pound boxes of chocolate from Sherm’s factory for Christmas. We gave a box to each family member, brothers, and sisters, step-brothers, step-sisters, parents, nieces, and nephews. The box count went between twenty-five and sixty over the years. Then we might get larger boxes for various places, such as a two-pounder for our chiropractor’s office. Everyone in my family plus people at church and other friends have looked forward to that little half-pound box every year, it was really very good chocolate.
But time marches on, and none of us are immune to it. Sherm and his wife Linda were getting older. Sherm had had a number of health crises, including cancer and so last year they sold the business. And then early this year, Sherm passed on. He was still a bit short of eighty, didn’t make it quite as long as his co-birthdayist.
I have been in the candy shop a few times this year. They have changed the boxes and sizes they use and raised their prices. Still, it was time for placing the order for Christmas. I called them up to place the order.
“We don’t have half-pound boxes anymore. We do have a 7-½ ounce box, and that assortment is $19.99.”
“$19.99?” I asked. “I seem to remember it as less last year.”
I think it was $7.99 last year for the full eight ounces.
“The previous owners had not raised prices in forty years, and we had to bring prices in line so we would cover our costs.”
Now, I had only known the previous owners for about twenty-five years, but I know a half-pound box used to be $4.99, and maybe lower since I was a customer. Sherm had raised prices more than once since I was going there.
And, I can understand if the price went up a bit, maybe $9.99? Maybe even $11.99? But $19.99?
Well, we’re not getting the chocolate treats from there this year. We may get them from another Michigan candy company or we may get something else. But that twenty-plus year tradition was officially killed.
Also, I can’t imagine the new owners will be in business long with prices like that. I just did a price check with other companies. $15.99 for a half pound one place known to be overpriced. $23.50 for a pound another place or 13.25 for half-pound. $16.50 another.
Seeing this sort of thing makes me very sad. Happy Christmas. Now, what do we do?
Published in Group Writing
Maye the problem is, they didn’t outsource the manufacturing to China?
Raw cauliflower is yummy. I shouldn’t eat so much of it, though.
Fresh coffee, roasted-to-order, is good. Not so good if you have to send it through the mail, though. By the time it gets to your recipients, it’s probably past its peak flavor. And if your friends and relatives don’t drink coffee, you should perhaps reconsider your choice of friends and relatives.
I don’t drink coffee.
I used to trust things you wrote. Not any more.
But let me explain. I’m a supertaster. Every taste is much stronger for me. If I had no tastebuds, I’m sure coffee would be fine.
You know, don’t you Arahant, that moaning about high prices is a sign that you are growing old? That’s what is happening to you, ‘Arahant. You’re growing old.
Don’t despair. It happens to us all. Well, to most of us, anyway. I’m so old that everything seems pricy to me. When I was in college and newly married, I used to buy a carton of cigarettes for two dollars. Now I would have to pay fifty dollars — if I smoked, that is. Fifty bucks for a carton of Chesterfields! Highway robbery! That’s five bucks a pack. That’s twenty-five cents a cig.
And coffee these days at your neighborhood Starbucks costs three bucks a cup! What the hell? A cup of coffee used to cost me five cents.
Smoking a cig and drinking a cup of joe used to cost me six cents at my local diner. And I could smoke there! That‘ll cost you $3.25 these days — if you can find a place to smoke.
I’ve used a lot of exclamation points in this response. And every single one of them is justified! So put that in your pipe and smoke it! If you can afford to!
I was old when Doggerland was still above the sea.
You have to be a supertaster to detect all the flavors that someone like Thom of Sweet Maria’s Coffee does. I can detect things like “fruity” or “nutty” but not the specific fruits and nuts like the supertasters do. And my ability to discriminate has not improved with age.
It was about a year ago at this time that I served coffee from several different origins at a church function. I was impressed that our young organist was able to discriminate the flavors better than I could. He acknowledged that he had a good sense of taste, but told me that his mother-in-law was a lot better. He said she could identify the source of the bottled waters sold in our town by their taste.
My wife remembered that the Kellogg Company was not so long ago looking for super-tasters to help with some of its product development. But I think it was just for on-call work on specific projects, and not for full-time employment.
Given most of their products are grain-based, I probably couldn’t help anyway.
I never cared for coffee anyway, although I do like good tea. But I don’t mean “herbal” stuff which technically isn’t “tea” anyway. (And I like how Earl Grey smells, but not how it tastes. Plus I like some milk in tea, which is a Bad Idea with Earl Grey.)
My only “super-tasting” ability seems to be my ability to detect the tiniest amount of “seafood” in anything. Perhaps an extra-developed defense mechanism since I don’t like any kind of “seafood.” (seafood, lakefood, riverfood, whatever…)
Start a new tradition!🙂
I can relate. As a college student I rented (with parental assistance) my first apartment, a tiny two room spot in Center City Philadelphia, and had for the first time to buy my own food and household supplies.
I bought my groceries and supplies from the corner store. My “allowance” was just $15 a week, but $10 would fill a large grocery bag to overflowing, and last several days at least.
Today? That allowance might cover two pounds of ground beef. It’s easy to spend $50 and not half fill the bag.
Such is life. Sigh.
Yes, but if you can still only spend $15 a week, you may have bigger problems.
When I got out of college, my brother and I went to work for a commercial construction company for $4.75/hr. Our standard work week was 58 hours, and we cleared $258/week after taxes. This was in 1973. Our pretty nice two-bedroom apartment cost us $160/month. We were rich!
That does explain a lot. I know one other supertaster, he is part of our local homebrew club. It was amazing to me his ability to discern and name all of the things he could detect. I was envious until he told me about the curse that came with being a supertaster. He didn’t enjoy most foods. On the other hand, i really struggled, and worked very hard to train myself to be able to identify different flavors and scents. This was required to pass the beer judging exam, the hardest exam i ever took. Sounds like you would be a superstar beer judge, but i recommend not becoming one. Even with my meager tasting ability i have judged some horrible tasting beers.
It does sound like the new owners of the candy company are going to have some trouble, if their price is uncompetitive. Since the new owners may have taken out a loan to buy the company, a high produce price may be necessary to “cover their costs.” But everybody who has owned a business (other than a contractor to the government) knows that cost is not the proper basis on which to set prices. Then again even some large businesses run by MBAs and others who presumably should know better have over-leveraged their purchases and found themselves unable to cover their costs.
Your friend may have been charging less than what he could have, which he might have been able to do because he didn’t have a high baseline of expenses, and he may have seen the business as a fun sideline rather than as something from which to maximize profits. So, a price jump as the business changed owners may have been inevitable, even if the magnitude seems excessive.
The mechanic I use for one of my cars (he specializes in German cars) can’t be making as much money as he could be from his one-man operation. His prices should be higher. He is older, and had a long time as a well-compensated mechanic at a regional dealership before opening his own shop, so I think he just enjoys the work, and charges just enough to live comfortably. Were anyone to buy his business, the prices would have to go up quite a bit.
Yep.
Going back and reviewing the amount I paid, last year it was at least $9.99 per half pound, and maybe more. I’ve been checking with equal competitors and somewhere around $13-15 per half pound is reasonable. There is just no way they are going to make it with those prices.
We probably shall, but like Kent says, we’re old. It’s a lot of work to start a tradition.
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Maybe restart an even older tradition that has fallen by the wayside recently?
Killing everyone on the theory that God will know his own?
I was thinking something a little more family friendly.
Bottles of laudanum for everyone?
I was thinking of something less opiate-derived.
Why don’t you just tell me what you were thinking of?
For many years I have given my husband a couple of boxes of chocolates for his birthday (which is today—happy birthday, sweetie). The candy came from a pop-up shop that appeared every December and was meant to tide us over until Santa Claus filled our stockings with lots of chocolate.
But not this year. Whether it was the pandemic or the general decline of shopping malls, there is no temporary chocolate shop at our local moribund mall. Googling failed to reveal anywhere in town the candy company may have found as a substitute. I gave up and bought a small, outrageously expensive box of Godiva truffles.
Another tradition is at an end. And no way those truffles are going to last till Christmas.
I never think of the price of chocolates. Probably because I only ever think to buy them in Paris, and refuse to look at the prices there. (:
My stock is gone, with Covid preventing our trip this past year. ):
Some of us ain’t so fancy as you, Phil. 😉
Candy. Flowers. Christmas movies.