The 60-Year Alliance Between Goetze’s Candy Company and a Key Supplier
These family-owned and operated businesses have been working together on packaging Caramel Creams for generations. The secret to their long-term relationship comes down to a matter of trust.
Goetze's Candy Company is the maker of Caramel Creams and Cow Tales.
here is a common request from manufacturers when it comes to working with machine builders, and that is, to be better partners. They want to be able to rely on their OEMs. That means creating sturdy, safe, and reliable equipment. But when it comes to building trust, it is about culture and the personal relationships formed throughout the years.
Case in point: Goetze’s Candy Company makes the recognizable Caramel Creams known as “Bulls-Eyes” and “Cow Tales.” Founded in 1895, when August Goetze and his son William entered the chewing gum business, gum eventually evolved into caramels.
In the early days, much of the candy production and packaging was handmade. But in the 1960s, the company bought a machine from Triangle Package Machinery, and several decades later, the Goetze family still purchases packaging machinery from Triangle. Currently, they have nine vertical form fill seal (VFFS) machines of various models, seven combination weighers, and one inline weigher. The inline weigher dates to 1976.
“The machine we had from the early 1960s was just replaced at the end of 2021,” says Todd Goetze, President and COO at Goetze’s Candy Company. “The machinery is built for a long life and holds up.”
What has held up is the professional relationship between the Goetze family and Triangle for the last 60 years. That stems, in part, from the fact that both companies have a deep-rooted history and similar culture. Goetze’s is a sixth generation family-owned and operated manufacturer. And Triangle, established in 1923 and coming up on its centennial anniversary, is a third generation family-owned and operated OEM.
These business parallels create a familiarity that makes it easy to pick up the phone and ask for help. “If I’m looking for answers, I have the best shot of getting in touch with someone directly at a family-owned business. In fact, I have the personal cell phone numbers of several Triangle representatives and I can call them anytime, which makes all the difference in the world,” Goetze says, noting that his own company is managed by him and his brother, as well as his uncle and father. In addition, his niece and nephew—the sixth generation—have recently joined the company.Family-owned Goetze’s Candy has been in operation for over 125 years. Pictured here (from left to right) President and COO Todd Goetze (fifth generation), and his niece and nephew Emily Goetze and Spaulding Goetze, III (sixth generation).
Cultures Create Connections
John Cooke, Triangle’s eastern sales manager, agrees that the two companies’ cultures create a strong connection. Cooke has been with the OEM for almost 30 years and the person he replaced retired after 30 years. “We have a lot of longevity,” he says. “Triangle as a company has been successful by building trust with customers and providing comfort that we’ll do what’s right for them. And anyone in the Goetze family can call if there’s a problem with a machine. Even if it’s not related to a Triangle machine, we will help them.”
Cooke comments that Triangle president Bryan Muskat says that Triangle fixes customers’ problems, whether they are Triangle’s or not.
This is not your father’s machine
A variety of food segments use Triangle equipment, from candy to fresh produce to frozen foods. Triangle offers several packaging machines, including VFFS baggers, weighers, horizontal cartons, tray packers, tray loaders, blending machines, pouch fillers, and more. In addition, Triangle machines support about a dozen different package styles.
Over the years, the Goetze family has modernized the machines with control technology, adding capabilities such as automatic changeover or food-specific functionality. At PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2021, the company introduced a liquid-fill VFFS bagger designed for hot-fill, pumpable foods, such as soup and sauces. The bagger includes a servo-controlled squeegee system that prevents the liquid product from entering the seal area. This eliminates costly leaks and headspace inside the package. It ensures quality seals using heat seal jaws or optional ultrasonic sealing jaws for higher speeds.
“We are a leader in ultrasonic sealing,” Cooke says. “All of our current machines are designed to work with ultrasonic seals. And from a sustainability standpoint, putting ultrasonics on VFFS baggers uses less power than heat seal machines and uses less film.”
Goetze’s Candy is not currently using ultrasonic seals, but its machine setup for packaging the Caramel Creams is still very efficient. Triangle machines weigh and bag the product. Conveyors move the filled bags and feed them into Fallas Automation case packers. Robotic palletizers transport the filled cases overhead.
“There’s no question that over the years the machines have gotten better,” Goetze says. “When I was a kid working summers here on the bag machine, it took three of us—two people packing and one loading a pallet—and we were running roughly 70 bags per minute. Now, a typical system runs 110 bags per minute and has one person monitoring it. The accuracy and speeds are better. There is ease of use with touchscreens and alarm messaging that comes up on the screen when something is wrong. It even directs people where to find the problem, compared to the older machines which would just stop.” And if there is ever a problem the internal team can’t fix, Triangle support is available for remote diagnostics and problem-solving—at any time.
Service and Support Set Standard
According to Cooke, an elevated level of service and support is what sets Triangle apart. “We’ve had employees in the parts department walk to work on a Sunday to ship something out if a customer calls looking for a part,” he says.
And having decades of experience with a customer has its advantages. “One of my favorite stories with Goetze’s Candy has to do with that machine from the 1960s,” Cooke remembers. “It was about five years ago and Todd had called me for a part for that machine, which was a casted part of metal poured in a sand [mold]. We actually had one in stock and had [the machine] up and running the next day.”
The Triangle inline combination weighers weigh the twist Caramel Creams and then they are bagged. Filled bags are moved via conveyors to Fallas Automation case packers.
It also streamlines factory acceptance tests (FATs). “The last five machines we bought, we have not attended an FAT at Triangle,” Goetze says. “We’ve relied on one of the field service engineers, Scott Kotsch, who knows us well enough and knows how we like the machines. He does the tests for us and he has been the one to do the startup on site. And it’s worked well.”
When it comes to planning for future innovations and business expansions, the Goetze family brings Cooke into the conversation. He taps into his expertise on how a machine will handle different packaging or speeds. He relies on his honest feedback on what will work and what won’t.
Cooke says honest communication is key to building trust and a long-term partnership. The recipe for success is to “treat people the way you want to be treated.”
Goetze is aware that there is a lot of great equipment out there. But, deviating from this deep-rooted relationship that spans decades is unnecessary. “The way things are working now are working well, and they have been for generations.”
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Family-owned Goetze’s Candy has been in operation for over 125 years. Pictured here (from left to right) President and COO Todd Goetze (fifth generation), and his niece and nephew Emily Goetze and Spaulding Goetze, III (sixth generation).
