Sanders Candy to close 4 stores, focus on online sales, innovation

Sanders Candy is closing four stores in metro Detroit while undertaking a new retail strategy to adapt to new forms of consumer demand that have accelerated during the COVID-19 crisis, it said Thursday in a news release.

The Sanders company-owned stores in Grosse Pointe, Livonia at Laurel Park Place, Novi at Twelve Oaks Mall and St. Clair Shores will not reopen following the lifting of Michigan’s “Stay At Home” order. The move will affect 15 full-time and 20 part-time employees, some of whom could be moved to open positions at the two stores that will reopen or at its manufacturing or distribution centers, the release stated.

The stores at the Sanders factory on Hall Road in Clinton Township and in downtown Rochester will become the company’s only retail locations and will reopen Tuesday.

Sanders is building an Innovation Center at its manufacturing facility in Clinton Township and plans to resume tours. The company also plans to offer home delivery of its products to metro Detroit customers via online food takeout apps.

Stores in Wyandotte and on Mackinac Island, which are owned and operated by licensees, are not affected.

“Because of the strong demand for Sanders products online, nationally and locally, in recent months, we realized that we have needed to accelerate a new retail strategy,” Chief Marketing Officer Jen Bauer said in the release. “With specialty retail closed since March in Michigan, we kept up with high demand via grocery and warehouse retailers and direct to consumer, via our website. We saw the ways consumers most want to enjoy Sanders. Our two-location retail approach will allow Metro Detroiters to help shape the future of the brand, while the company adjusts to the trends that shape our business.”

Sanders was founded in 1875 when Fred Sanders Schmidt opened his first Sanders candy shop in Detroit. The regional chocolate and caramel icon was acquired by another Detroit-born snack maker, Kar Nut Products Co., in 2018.