Page 71 - Demo

many all with the same expiry date. They had to liquidate 140,000 chocolate bars, and Westergard says the story went “mental-health-destroying viral.” She did interviews for many news sources and publications — including CBC French Canada and an Irish radio station.
That’s when the phone calls started
— from around the world. “Millions of people on the planet think you are going to give them a candy bar. And the internet will just clip out parts of the story that they realize that everyone is interested in reading,” she says, her voice rising. “And soon the part where they’re all in Calgary locked in a food safe ware- house in pallets and boxes and can’t be given out individually gets lost.”
She’d get calls at home, at work, all the time — once from a teacher who had promised kids they would get free bars if they wrote to her; Westergard assumes it was a means of practising their penmanship. She could not oblige.
“It didn’t matter how many educational pieces I put out there,” says Westergard.
Reading comprehension be damned, we all want the chocolate. My husband walks by as I chat with Westergard and gives me a thumbs up and wink. I know what’s on his mind: Did I ask her for a case of chocolate?
“WE’RE NOT ABOUT THE
REASONS WHY MODERN PEOPLE PICK UP A CHOCOLATE BAR. IT’S ABOUT EXPERIENCING THE PAST.”
But by this time, it’s all gone — big trucks with refrigerators came and load- ed up over 12,000 pounds with the prod- uct going to fire stations and food banks, plus many other charitable places.
“At that point, you don’t know if you’re going to be able to keep going financially,” says Westergard. Along with liquidating the chocolate, at the time she thought she might have to liquidate the company itself. So she called her lawyer to see if they could sell.
“And he said: I can’t sell it unless you turn it around. I thought: great.”
But she did it — she sold stocks they
were keeping for retirement and loaned the company money for a couple months. “Luckily, the other chocolate bars sell well and the fresh Rum & Butters were selling just fine so there was cash flow,” she says.
And now there’s even a new historic bar on the team — the Reggie! bar, endorsed
by baseball legend Reggie Jackson, aka Mr. October. It’s produced in the United States. It was created in 1978 by the Curtiss Candy Co, also known for the manufacturing the Baby Ruth bar. That year, on the home-opening day at Yankee Stadium, the New York Yankees gave away thousands of the bars
to fans who threw them on the field after Jackson hit a home run.
“It was such a shared experience. Forty thousand people all threw them in the air at the same time. They had to stop the game. It’s a candy bar moment in history,” Westergard says.
She loves the connection people have with all three of her company's candy bars. They are all unique, all made in different places and all resonate with different people.
“They each have their own identity. And they each have their own website — we can’t slam them together, that would be sacrilege.” ED.
71