Charms Blow Pops

hideThis article has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. (June 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article does not cite any sources. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (July 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Charms Blow Pops

Product type	Confectionery
Owner	Tootsie Roll Industries
Introduced	1973; 48 years ago (1973)
Previous owners	Charms

Charms Blow Pops are lollipops with bubble gum centers surrounded by a hard candy shell. The candy was popularized by The Charms Candy Company. Invention of the candy is attributed to Ross Cameron, Walter Reid, and Vince Ciccone^{[citation needed]}. Blow Pops became the Charms Candy Company's best-selling product of all time.

In 1988, the Charms Candy Company was sold to Tootsie Roll Industries. With the addition of Blow Pops to their product line which included Tootsie Rolls, the Tootsie Roll Company became the largest lollipop manufacturer in the world.

Walter W. Reid Jr. founded the Charms Candy Company in 1912. The company was originally called Tropical Charms, a reference to the individually wrapped square-shaped hard candies, which were one of the first to be individually wrapped in cellophane.

Tropical Charms was founded in Bloomfield,New Jersey. The company name was eventually shortened to Charms.

During World War II, the U.S. Army began including Charms candies in combat rations as a supplemental energy form. That tradition has continued with a few interruptions.

After the war, Walter Reid III, the son of the founder, took control of the company and made it the leading producer of hard candy in the world. Little known fact that Charms developed a wide variety of confections. 1937 - 1950s Charms started producing pecan filled chocolate bars called "25 Carats" made with The Hershey Company top grade chocolate (at that time, Hershey had 3 grades of chocolate). The chocolate candy was discontinued due to the high margin cost and other internal problems. In the 1960s beside making other Holiday candy lollipops they also produced Charms "Jellies" and Chuckles Gum Drops. Later they created a peanut butter filled hard candy in the shape of a peanut leading up to the idea of the Blow Pop. In 1969, the company developed and patented the Charms Blow Pop, the first bubble gum-filled lollipop in the world. It made its debut four years later, in 1973. Blow Pops come in watermelon, strawberry, cherry, grape, and sour apple flavors (sour apple was introduced later and was originally round like an apple).

The company was led by Reid III, Ross B. Cameron Sr. (Walter W. Reid Jr.’s son-in-law) and his two sons, Ross B. Cameron Jr. and Reid B. Cameron.

The Charms Candy Company moved its manufacturing plant from Bloomfield, NJ to Freehold, NJ in 1973. The company eventually purchased and built a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Covington, Tennessee, which is currently still being used to produce Charms candies.

Besides the Blow Pop, the candy company produced Charms Squares, Sweet & Sour Pops, Sour Balls and many other smaller candy products.

See also[]

• List of confectionery brands

References[]

Glimpse of History Sweet Treat