At last, homemade Frango Mints are back
South Side candymaker Cupid Candies producing them for Macy's
South Side candymaker Cupid Candies has started producing the No. 1-selling Frango product one-pound boxes of the mint chocolates in the past several days for local Macy's department stores.
The start of production, to be announced today by Macy's and Cupid Candies executives, comes a year and a half after production was expected to start.
The 73-year-old Cupid Candies had to go through lengthy processes to get mandatory certificates, including kosher certification from the Chicago Rabbinical Council.
The Frangos will be shipped from Cupid's factory at 7637 S. Western to Macy's stores throughout the Chicago area, a Macy's spokeswoman confirmed Monday.
"This is the Frango market," she said.
The production is meaningful to Chicagoans outraged by the 1999 outsourcing of Frango production to Pennsylvania under then-Marshall Field's corporate parent Dayton Hudson, and then outraged again when Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren jettisoned the Marshall Field's brand and replaced it with Macy's in September 2006.
John Stefanos, whose parents founded Cupid Candies and who now runs the business, remembered in a previous interview his mother, Pauline, taking the family to Marshall Field & Co.'s Walnut Room for Christmas.
Stefanos enjoyed Field's Frango Mints, even though they were a rival to Cupid's French Mint and Mint Meltaway.
Frango's existing manufacturer, Gertrude Hawk Chocolates in Pennsylvania, will continue to make all other types of Frangos, as well as Frango cookies.
Frango's return is one of several deals that Macy's has inked with Chicago-based food makers and bakers:
• Macy's started serving Oberweis Ice Cream two years ago in the Frango Cafe at State Street. The 94-year-old Oberweis dairy is headquartered in North Aurora.
• Sarah Levy, the daughter of Levy Restaurant co-founder Mark Levy and the niece of Levy Restaurant Chairman Larry Levy, opened her second Sarah's Pastries & Candies shop on the main floor of Macy's State Street store in the fall of 2007.
• Macy's chose Chicago-based Eli's Cheesecake to make a Frango Mint cheesecake for the 62 former Field's stores.