Simon's Candy Company

Our Company

Simon Candy is located in the heart of Central Pennsylvania's "dutch" country, between Lancaster and Harrisburg. Many familiar candy and snack food brands are produced in the region, including chocolate candy, pretzels, chips, and cookies. The local labor force enjoys a well-earned reputation for having a strong work ethic, high motivation, and excellent job skills. Some of our employees have been with us for more than 30 years!

We work hard to develop our employees through structured training, annual evaluations, and careful hiring. Almost every operator position in our company has a custom training program including videos and tests. Operators must successfully pass this training to be classified as an operator. Simon's Candy sponsors its own candy making class. We also allow the PMCA (Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioner's Association) to use our plant in a Hard Candy seminar which is open to PMCA members - even competitors. Simon's Employees

To do our bit to help conserve energy, the Simon plant operates 4 days a week. Production employees work four 10-hour days, saving on transportation costs for those who drive to work (some walk) and, perhaps more importantly, making every weekend a long one. And no, this isn't a new idea. We've had the 4-day week since the 1970's.
Our CIP (Continuous Improvement Process) program is led by hourly employees. The CIP has several core cultural goals: always to strive to improve the way we work, to push decisions down to the plant level, and to grow our employees in and away from the job. In our plants, we have a "zero accident" goal. We have in place a PA State Certified Safety Team made up of hourly employees who continually audit our plants. The team has initiated programs from pre-work stretching exercises to ergonomic work studies.

Pharmaloz Employees Simon Candy Company was founded in 1949 by Charles and Margaret Simon. The original manufacturing facility, still in operation today, was built in 1950 at 31 North Spruce Street, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.
Initially, the company produced decorated seasonal chocolate products, switching to hard candies several years later. In May of 1974 Simon Candy was sold to JoEl Inc., owned by John and Eleanor Hess. Since then, two expansions have been added to the original manufacturing facility.

In 1982, the company started to produce throat lozenges and cough drops after management recognized opportunity in the cough drop market. To better serve this market, JoEl Inc. created a second division named Pharmaloz, and built a new "State of the Art" production facility with continuous operation in nearby Lebanon, PA.
In 1988, the two original founders of JoEl Inc. retired and sold the balance of their ownership to their children. The company continued its strong growth with the second generation adding two expansions to the Pharmaloz facility as they expanded into the cough drop market.
Since 1995, JoEl Inc. has successfully manufactured the Cold-Eeze® homeopathic zinc cold remedy lozenge. Within a six-month period, from the fall of 1996, JoEl Inc. successfully completed the national pipeline fill for the product, which experienced the fastest sales increase in the history of the cough/cold lozenge category. The two companies have been working together since to expand the Cold-Eeze® family product line which now includes Kidz-Eeze® Sore Throat Pops and assorted flavors of Cold-Eeze® lozenges.
In 2003, Simon Candy Co. struck out in a new direction, adding a completely new line of organic candy named College Farm™ Organic. Consisting of 6 flavors of hard candy and 4 flavors of lollipops, College Farm™ is the first and only line of organic hard candies made in the United States.
On October 1, 2004 The Quigley Corporation, owners of the Cold-Eeze® brand, purchased the assets of JoEl, Inc., renaming the new company Quigley Manufacturing Inc. We will continue to manufacture quality confections and OTC products at our Elizabethtown and Lebanon plants. The keys to past success are those embraced by present management, which are:

1) The ethical treatment of customers, vendors, and employees and of the management of business assets.
2) The dedication to producing a quality product with inherent consumer value.

MISSION STATEMENT
Quigley Manufacturing Inc. develops and manufactures high-boiled confections and lozenges for the branded and private label market. The corporation endeavors to profitably manufacture products of consistently superior quality, to serve customers in a timely and satisfactory manner, and to competitively price products yielding excellent value for our customers.