History: Jerome C. Claeys founded Claeys Candy Inc. in a South Bend garage in 1919. The company initially made a product known as Etabar, a caramel nut bar covered with icing. Hard candies eventually became the primary item sold by Claeys, which has been overseen by Claeys’ grandson, Gregg Claeys, since the 1970s. Headquarters: Claeys […]
The operation: LM Sugarbush produces maple syrup on a 140-acre farm in the southern Indiana town of Salem. Its owners are Jen Reisenbichler and Emily Blackman and their husbands, Nic Reisenbichler and Robert Blackman. All four have full-time “day jobs” and operate LM Sugarbush on the side. The farm sells about 2,500 gallons of syrup—$250,000 […]
History: The origins of Sechler’s Pickles dates to 1914 when Ralph Sechler operated a pickle station in St. Joe in northeastern Indiana for the D.M. Sears Co. After he spent time in college and the U.S. Army, Sechler returned to the DeKalb County town in 1919 and two years later established St. Joe Valley Brands. […]
History: The history of Uncle Al’s is somewhat elusive, with the recipes and their ownership changing hands multiple times throughout the decades. As the stories go, a man named Al Beesbrook created a fry mix he sold under the name Fin & Fowl in the Mishawaka and South Bend areas, possibly as far back as […]
History: Jana Bass grew up participating in Johnson County’s 4-H program, showing goats. Her own children would follow suit. Jana and her husband, Brad, started Bass Farms on their family farm because they had “lots of 4-H goats with goat milk.” They began making goat milk lotion and goat milk soap to sell at the […]
History: The company was founded in 1958 by Donald Wentzel, who bought a poultry plant in northern Indiana after deciding to leave the feed trade in Chicago, where he had sold duck feed to farmers on Long Island. He saw how inefficient and costly it was to transport feed cross-country from the Midwest. Wentzel thought […]
History: The history of Tell City Pretzels dates back to 1858, when Casper Gloor settled in the brand-new town of Tell City. He had migrated from Switzerland as a member of the Swiss Colonization Society, which founded Tell City. Gloor, a master baker, became known for pretzels he baked from a secret recipe. When Gloor […]
History: Greg Sartor had been working at Caldwell/Moser Tannery in New Albany for about two years when, in 2002, the company closed after some 125 years in business. Sartor had been overseeing the leather lace part of the business—making shoelaces for major retailers, including Timberland, Rockport and Sperry. When the company closed, he purchased some […]
It’s especially fun to buy products when I know that I’m supporting an Indiana company and Hoosier workers.
History: Millions of Clif Bar products—including the company’s signature protein and nutrition bars, as well as Luna Bars and Z Bars—are produced at the company’s Indianapolis facility, which opened after Clif Bar began manufacturing its own products in 2014. The company, based in northern California, was started by Gary Erickson and Lisa Thomas in 1992; […]
History: Abbott’s Candies was founded in 1890 by W.C. Abbott in Hagerstown. He started his career as a traveling salesman selling candies for the Dilling Candy Co. His first business was a restaurant in Hagerstown that served fried chicken, steak and pastries. While running the restaurant, he experimented with creating candy. His butterscotch and chocolate […]
History: The Chevrolet Silverado, the second-most-popular pickup truck in America last year, is made at General Motors Co.’s Fort Wayne Assembly Plant. The 3-million-square-foot facility was built in 1986 and today employs nearly 4,000 people. GM has invested $1.2 billion in the plant, which recently celebrated manufacturing its 10 millionth truck. In June, GM announced […]
History: Founded in Bluffton by Paul Gerber in 1962, Aqua Blast first sold pressure washers only to agricultural customers. Under new ownership in 1984, the company moved to the Adams County community of Decatur. Present owner David Tumbleson joined Aqua Blast’s sales staff in 1987. Tumbleson became a co-owner two years later, and he’s been […]
History: Bob Sturgeon, an artist who spent 30 years in industrial engineering, made his first wooden fishing lure in 2012 when he lived in Nebraska. The roots of his business creating intricate wooden fishing lures date to when a friend left him a piece of wood to carve a bow. With some of the leftover […]
The bright orange corn, which is derived from varieties that originated in South America and the Caribbean, is designed to be milled into cornmeal, grits and polenta, rather than eaten off the cob.
History: Mark McSweeney and his wife opened Great Harvest Bread Co. in 1989, which brought them to Indianapolis, where his wife is from. Great Harvest was a retail whole grain bakery that transitioned into a wholesale business in 2008. In 2013, he started experimenting with making potato chips in a small tabletop fryer he got […]
Company history: Needham King Hurst started his Indianapolis business in 1938 as a coffee, tea and sugar distributor but got into the dried-bean business in 1947, finding demand for quality dry beans in small packages. Hurst soon began selling packaged beans to several major grocery chains, including the A&P Tea Co., Winn-Dixie and Kroger. Today, […]
Subaru of Indiana Automotive is the only Subaru manufacturing facility outside Japan, and it accounts for about half of all Subaru vehicles sold in North America.
History: Kidstuff Playsystems was founded in 1982 as Olympic Recreation by Richard Hagelberg, who operated not-for-profit child care centers with his wife, and George McGuan, a carpenter. Hagelberg had been looking at catalogs of playground equipment for the child care centers and thought it might not be hard to build. He took the idea to […]
Not Just Popcorn Etc. offers more than 400 flavors of popcorn and keeps about 85 in stock at its store in Edinburgh.
