Texas candy maker adapts to market as sugar wars rage on
LUFKIN, Texas—On a busy highway heading into this industrial East Texas town, a candy factory stands next to a chicken processing plant that sometimes wafts the smell of bird guts across the parking lot that divides them, mixing with the delicate scents of peppermint and peanuts.
But Atkinson Candy Co., an 85-year-old confectioner best known for its Chick-O-Stick bars sold in convenience stores across the nation, has a bigger, albeit sweeter smelling problem than the occasional foul odor from its neighbor: sugar. Because of U.S. price supports and trade barriers, Atkinson pays about double what its foreign competitors do for the industry's main ingredient, creating constant pressure on the family-owned business to either sell out, shut down or shift production overseas.
"All of my competition for the past 30 years has been from companies offshore," Eric Atkinson, third in a line of Atkinsons to run the company, told the Houston Chronicle . "Right now it's kind of like playing football on the side of a mountain, and we got the bottom goal."
As President Donald Trump tweets about the evils of imports, threatening to slap tariffs on goods brought in from overseas, Atkinson Candy Co. is a reminder that many companies and workers in America, especially in Texas, benefit from free-flowing trade. Policies aimed at protecting certain jobs and industries from foreign competition can have devastating effects on others.
Read more: http://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/texas/story/2017/jun/13/texas-candy-maker-adapts-market-sugar-wars-rage/677795/
