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Otto Schnering was an American candy maker and entrepreneur best known for creating the Baby Ruth and Butterfinger..
Otto Schnering founded the Curtiss Candy Company in Chicago in 1916. He started the company with just $100 worth of equipment in a second-floor back room on North Halsted Street.
He chose to name the company after his mother's maiden name. As WW1 recently ended, there was anti-German sentiment throughout America. The move shielded the young company from possible backlash due to rising nationalism.
The company's early brands included products such as:
Schnering invented products that are still popular today in the 1920s: the Baby Ruth candy bar in 1921 and the Butterfinger in 1926. Butterfinger was named with the help of a public contest.
He also pioneered the 5-cent candy bar, making chocolate affordable.
Baby Ruth would become one of the best-selling candy bars in America. And Butterfinger would hit an all-time success with help from the Simpsons.
His success in the industry got him the nickname the "U.S. Candy Bar King."
By 1928, the Curtiss Candy Company was manufacturing one billion candy bars annually and had over 3,500 employees in three Chicago factories.
Schnering was a marketing genius for his era.
He was known for dropping Baby Ruth candy bars from airplanes with tiny parachutes attached, landing in the streets of major US cities.
He encouraged collaboration among other candy brands to boost the entire candy industry. For example, he came up with the general slogan in his 1938 "Candy is Delicious Food—Eat Some Every Day" ad campaign.
Otto Schnering was a very kind boss. He's best known for his paternalistic management style, which treats employees as family. The Curtiss Candy Company offered extensive benefits and social services.
Let's say his employees were very loyal to him and the company.
His management approach was exemplified by his farm in Cary, Illinois. He developed a self-contained mini-city on this farm with worker dormitories, cafeterias, factories, and barns.
In World War II, he hired Japanese-American workers to work on his farm. He defended the Japanese-Americans against racism and prejudice at the time.
Former employees of Schnering continued to hold reunions to honor him decades after his death.
Schnering also had other business interests.
He got into cattle breeding with the establishment of Curtiss Breeding Services. The breeding service became known for large-scale artificial insemination of cattle.
Schnering also founded Otto Schnering College, which was dedicated to training in specialized techniques of artificial insemination for cattle breeding.
The Curtiss Candy Company started with a modest gross income of $100,000 in its first year of business. However, the company will explode in growth in the coming decades.
By the 1960s, the company had become a leader in its category, with annual gross revenues reaching over $60 million.
After Otto Schnering died in 1953, The Curtiss Candy Company was purchased by Standard Brands in 1964.
It would undergo a series of corporate mergers and acquisitions. Most of its iconic brands eventually became part of Nestlé in 1990, when RJR Nabisco sold them to the Swiss giant.
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