Candy and coffee team up

If Seattle-based Starbucks is synonymous with fine coffee, Brown & Haley, Tacoma, WA, has a similar cachet with its Almond Roca candy. Beginning this year, the two organizations are teaming up as B&H produces Mocha Roca Coffee Buttercrunch in distinctive packaging for exclusive sale at Starbucks outlets. The new candy has a buttercrunch and toffee center, combined with the rich flavor of Starbucks’ coffee beans.

If Seattle-based Starbucks is synonymous with fine coffee, Brown & Haley, Tacoma, WA, has a similar cachet with its Almond Roca candy. Beginning this year, the two organizations are teaming up as B&H produces Mocha Roca Coffee Buttercrunch in distinctive packaging for exclusive sale at Starbucks outlets. The new candy has a buttercrunch and toffee center, combined with the rich flavor of Starbucks’ coffee beans. This is then “drenched” in a chocolaty blend that is covered with diced cashews. Each 0.42-oz piece of candy is wrapped in mocha-tinted 0.0008” aluminum foil on a machine built by Carle & Montanari (Raleigh, NC). Individually wrapped candies are then packed into a 7-oz pouch that’s loaded into a handsome imported oval tin. The pouch is a 4-mil lamination of oriented polypropylene/metallized polyester/linear low-density polyethylene as the sealant, says John Bishop of Totai America (Torrance, CA), which imports the film. “The tin is quite elegant,” says Raj Patel, purchasing manager for B&H. “It’s printed offset in eight colors, plus embossing. It’s closed with a two-piece lid. Obviously, there is a lot of labor involved, so we have it made in the Far East.” Selling for $7.95, the packaged candy is already a success. Patel reports that Starbucks has already reordered, “much faster than we expected.”