In early June, like the owners of other businesses selling everything from bread to milk, Craig Leva issued an apology, posting a flyer explaining to his customers why he’d had to increase his prices. Chicago Candy & Nut, the small retail outlet of his company, Arway Confections, was raising the price of cashews by a dollar per pound. The reason? In late 2007 and early 2008 exporters in Vietnam—as of last year the world’s largest source of cashews—defaulted en masse on contracts, citing rising labor costs and financing troubles. As importers’ warehouses emptied, they raised their prices for buyers like Leva, who in turn passed the increases on to consumers.
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As president and co-owner of a 75,000-square-foot candy factory, Leva is at the mercy of the market. Nevertheless, Arway, established in 1950, is still thriving, a low-profile survivor of the once dominant, now dwindling Chicago candy industry. The air surrounding the plant, just off the Kennedy on Kimball near Addison, bears no trace of the overpowering ambrosial aroma that issues from the Blommer Chocolate factory (one of Arway’s suppliers), though you may catch a whiff of cinnamon. And you’ll never come across a package of Arway-brand chocolate-coconut haystacks on the shelf at Target—but it’s possible that you’ve bought them there under another company’s name. Arway primarily sells its chocolate-covered peanuts, yogurt pretzels, and sponge candy in bulk to private-label manufacturers, catalog companies, distributors, fund-raisers, gift packers, and retailers who resell the candy as their own brands.
Leva spends a fair amount of time studying commodities markets and making purchasing decisions based on economic forecasts. Usually something is out of whack: cocoa prices are up because of political unrest in Ivory Coast, almonds are volatile because honeybees are dying off in California, or pecan prices are surging because southern farmers are growing corn, soy, or cotton instead. But lately, with oil prices skyrocketing and the dollar weakening, everything is going up at once, and consumers are paying the price.
omnivorous
