Ditto for the other people who crowded into Fort Fudge for a tour of the kitchens and retail space on Friday morning. It's like being in somebody else's kitchen. Some things are familiar, and some things are done differently. These aren't your ordinary tourists. They're members of Retail Confectioners International, a trade group representing 550 small candy makers and retailers in the United States and Canada, and this is what they do for fun.
People love to see how other people are doing exactly the same thing they're doing.
You'll see them peering around, taking notes like crazy. They love it. In some ways, the small-town candy makers of Northern Michigan are fairly typical of the industry, said Billingham. But in a number of other important respects, there are major differences. But in many parts of the country, chocolate sales plummet during the warm weather months.