A delicious tour of Abdallah Candies' sweet Apple Valley operation
APPLE VALLEY, Minn. — Abdallah Candies in Apple Valley is gearing up for big business for the sweetest day of the year.
The nearly 116-year-old family business said Valentine's Day is one of the busiest holidays next to Christmas and Easter.
Owner Steve Hegedus considers Valentine's Day the Super Bowl of candy days.
The business' 250 employees still make and package many of the sweet treats by hand.
Like many small businesses that sell chocolate, Abdallah's is facing rising prices for cocoa. Prices are up nearly 20% because the cost of cocoa has more than doubled in the past year. On top of concerns about fair labor practices in the industry, climate change is also threatening the business.
Hegedus said Abdallah's has been affected by it, but they're doing what they can to keep prices down.
"We hope it hasn't affected our customers too much, but chocolate prices are really high, as we've all heard," Hegedus said. "And as a business and a lot of the industry is trying to absorb most of that on our own, so we don't have to really pass anything on or too much to our customer. So, we're going to share in that increase and we hope that things will come around next year."
Abdallah's has brought back an old-time favorite this year: hand-foiled Marshmallow Hearts. The company also introduced a new sweet treat: the Sea Salt Peanut Butter Melt-a-Ways.
In the video above, WCCO's Pauleen Le spent the morning getting a look behind the scenes of the sweet operation.
