Tom Reed loved efficiency, but he could only do so much.
Reed had partially owned a factory in Indiana where people made candle-making equipment. He knew the candle industry, but since he didn”t sell directly to vendors, his understanding was limited.
At a trade show one day, he met Walter Stubbe, the founder and, at the time, the owner of Starkville-based Aspen Bay Candles, which was based on Roberta Mann”s basement-based operation, Candles by Bert. Reed and Stubbe found they had some things in common, including favorite magazines (Reed cited Forbes, the Economist and Conde Nast Traveler), and in February 2001 Reed bought the company.
For three years, he struggled to make the company more efficient and profitable. Then he came to realize he shouldn”t change the old ways — making short runs of unusual, artistic candles, not enormous runs of reliable products. And so the company began to move upscale. “It”s more boutiquey,” Reed said.
The company was bankrupt when he bought it, Reed said. Now, after eight years of Reed”s leadership, sometimes from afar — he commutes from his home outside Atlanta a few times a month — the company has not stopped growing, with sales up 7 percent year over year.
Has the company changed very much since he bought it?
“Hardly at all,” he said Wednesday, before giving a tour of the factory on Lynn Lane. “I mean, surprisingly little, actually.” For example, 90 percent of the people who worked for Aspen Bay under Stubbe still work there, he said.
By nature, though, a candle company must adapt its offerings to those popular at any given time if it wants to survive, he allowed. But if Aspen Bay”s “best noses” don”t like a fragrance, Reed can be sure he won”t be smelling it again.
Not that Reed has the final word. He was quick to admit he has “this unfortunate tendency to like these really complicated fragrances.” Take one called Madagascar. It was “really complicated, like a really good fruit port — tobacco fragrance, jammy and sweet,” Reed said. As he was rating it, he wrote down two stars next to its name. But it didn”t sell well, just like some others he”s liked.
Other Aspen Bay employees have noses worth trusting. Although he would not disclose who they were, the company”s employees with the “best noses” earn the distinction by consistently preferring the fragrances people end up buying most. In a business influenced if not defined by subjectivity, the “best noses” are Aspen Bay”s guide through the murky waters of the market.
Every little nook in the factory smells like one thing or another, or sometimes a few things, which drives perfumers crazy when they visit, Reed said. Nevertheless, he relies on some of the long-time employees in the factory, whose noses have hardened to the high level of “olfactory noise” — 30 fragrances being poured at once — to offer sound opinions on fragrances.
Lori Jefferson, one of the 15 or so core staffers at the factory, was making large pine cone-shaped candles. The company does not let just any employee make these; Jefferson has made her way up the ranks at the factory, having worked there for seven years.
Jefferson, of Crawford, walked around the perimeter of a table at the end of the factory, examining the progress of the candles she”d made thus far.
She had first poured an iced tea-colored frosting into each mold, spilled it out and then poured in hot brown wax. A candle stuck out from each one. Once the wax had hardened a bit, she eased the wick to the center of the bottom of each candle, which was face-up. “Gotta make sure it”s cool, not too hot,” she said.
Next, she snipped off the remainder of each wick, and then poured additional wax on top of each candle to create a solid, straight bottom.
At the Aspen Bay Candles retail store on Russell Street, part-time associate Rose Sisson said the pineapple-scented pine cones are “a big item.”
Sisson, who has been selling for the company for 12 years, from its inception, said she is often asked what is her favorite fragrance. (The company sells more than 100.)
“A better question,” she said, “is biggest seller,” which is vanilla coffee, which to her smells like burnt chocolate. “That”s the number-one since the get-go,” she said.
But, in case you were wondering, her favorites are Living Room, Sea Breeze and Trimming the Tree.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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