Candy King Reaches Out

As the maker of Baby Ruth, Butterfinger and other candy bars, Curtiss Candy Co. President Otto Schnering is the U.S. Candy Bar King. As a shirtsleeved owner of such prize bulls as Netherhall Swanky Dan and St. James Philosophers Barbee, Schnering is also one of the nation's top farmers. Last week, on his 7,soo-acre Illinois domain, the Candy Bar King reached for a new crown. After seven years' research, grey-haired, blue-eyed Otto Schnering was ready to launch the first big-scale nationwide system of breeding cattle by artificial insemination.

Such breeding is by no means new, but Schnering thinks it has been "too localized and slipshod" to have much effect. From his herd of 50 purebred bulls, Schnering expects to deliver anywhere in the U.S. on 24 hours' notice. He plans to send out technically trained salesmen with refrigerated kits containing the latest Curtiss product. At prices ranging from $7 for "pool" semen (i.e., an unspecified bull) up to $150 (selected sires), a successful mating will be guaranteed.

Corn & Television. What hybrid corn did for the corn farmers, Schnering hopes to do for the dairymen, some of whom already think the plan "may be the biggest advance in the livestock industry in more than 100 years." Says Schnering: "Except for television, artificial breeding is the fastest growing business in the U.S."

No matter how fast it grows, quick-stepping, penny-wise Otto Schnering, 57, will keep pace with it. As a boy, he spent his summers on his father's fatrm near Detroit, and hoped to become a farmer too. But after graduation from the University of Chicago, he wanted to get married, so he got a job in a bank.

In 1916, when he was 24, Schnering started a candy business with the help of four friends, a kitchen stove and a five-gallon kettle. He gave the business his mother's maiden name, Curtiss. It sputtered at the start for lack of capital; in 1920 it was caught with high-priced inventories amidst falling sugar prices; and in 1929 the crash nearly blew it apart--but each time Schnering kept it stuck together.

Profits & Pensions. Because stale stock ruined many a candymaker, Schnering sidestepped jobbers outside metropolitan centers, and developed a system whereby hundreds of truck-driving salesmen supplied Curtiss dealers. He spurred sales with profit & pension plans, and his 7,000 employees have never shown much interest in unionism.

Looking for other foods to fill his salesmen's trucks, Schnering was soon selling marshmallows, cookies, popcorn, soup mixes and some 80 other items. Now Curtiss sells $1.1 million in candy a week. The fact that Schnering was a big user of milk and other farm products helped start him looking around for a farm of his own. He wanted to show his suppliers how to produce high quality foodstuffs.

In 1944 he bought the showplace estate of John (Driv-Ur-Self) Hertz in the rolling green hills of Illinois' Fox River Valley. He turned it into a showplace for farmers, now spends most of his time there and on his other farms nearby. No money-losing gentleman farmer, he makes everything pay its own way. He once tried sheep raising. Totting up the books one night, he discovered that he was losing money at it; next day he ordered the sheep sold.

Mink & Trout. Last year Curtiss farms, stocked with 900 dairy cows, 9,000 hens (output: 2.5 million eggs annually), 8,000 turkeys, 200 beef cattle and 6,000 purebred hogs, rang up some $1,750,000 in sales. Schnering went into the risky business of raising broilers and, after experimenting with the chicks' diet, cut the growing time from twelve weeks to eleven weeks. He grossed $785,000 on 550,000 broilers.

When he found that the slaughter of the chickens left feet, heads and entrails, Schnering brought in mink which thrive on chicken waste; he now has 400 breeding mink on his farm. One day Schnering decided to put the gushing springs on his farm to work. He built a 1/4-mile-long trout hatchery, last year sold 60,000 trout to hotels and restaurants for an average $1 a lb.

Curtiss farms, like the candy factory, are spick & span. The glass brick and tile barn for prize calves is air-conditioned, has electrically-charged screens to kill flies. There are calving and isolation wards. Explains Schnering: "Calf mortality on the average farm runs 25% to 40%. That's plain bad business. Our average is just about zero." Signs in the cow barns read: "Every cow on this farm is a lady and should be treated as such."

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