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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

I Called This One!

William Wrigley, Jr. was an entrepreneurial genius. Wrigley, Sr. was a soap manufacturer, and Junior turned out to have a talent for selling the company's products. He was a people person who understood that the customer is always right, and who was quick to spot new trends.

He began selling his father's soap, eventually adding baking powder as a free premium. When he realized that the baking powder was a better draw than the soap, he switched to selling baking powder. This time he added a couple of packets of chewing gum to the baking powder as a free premium. When he realized that the gum was more popular than the baking powder, he went into the chewing gum business.

The Wrigley Company is still family-owned, run by the great-grandson of the founder, William Wrigley, Jr. II. Still employing the values and business smarts that made the company great. In 2004 , Wrigley bought Life Savers and Altoids. Today, they bought Korkunov Chocolate.

I knew, it, I knew it. The minute I spotted those lovely royal purple boxes of chocolate in Ocean State Job Lot, I knew they were going to hit it big. Korkunov was too delicious to remain undiscovered for long. Pretty soon it'll be everywhere, but not at the prices I was buying it for a few months ago.

This is the first brand of chocolate the Wrigley company has acquired, although it's slowly moving into the confectionery business. Let's see how it goes. Korkunov is so delicious, if I were Wrigley I might quit peddling chewing gum to concentrate on chocolate.

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