Candle kringle historical beginnings and successful figures behind

          Story started when Michael Kittredge III was 8 years old, he was disappointed after his father, the  founder of Yankee Candle Co., sold the Deerfield business, because he wanted to run the company one day.

But, that hasn't stopped the now 20-year-old from following in his father's footsteps, as he is now the president of Kringle Candle Co., which had its grand opening Saturday.

Kringle Candle, at 220 South St., has brought new jobs and will possibly bring additional tourist business to town.

The younger Kittredge's father grew a homegrown candle venture into the largest employer in the county with international sales. Michael Kittredge II, who is no longer connected to Yankee Candle, has been collaborating closely with his son on the new venture.

On Saturday, there was a ribbon cutting at the new 10,000-square-foot store on Route 5, and Congressman John Olver was to have been in attendance.

According to the younger Kittredge, the candle company has already hired nearly 50 people to work at the new facility.

"Around 95 percent of them are people from Bernardston and surrounding towns.

"It's a pretty good mix, actually. Thirteen to 15 of them work in the retail store, others work in production and the rest work in the office doing various jobs," he said.

The younger Kittredge said the idea for Kringle came from a school project that he was working on at Greenfield Community College about two years ago.

He said, for one of his marketing classes, he was asked to take an existing product or create a new product and come up with a business and marketing plan.

Kittredge chose candles and made some of his own in his basement. He said his father offered advice while doing the project. For his final examination, he sold about 300 candles at Jackson & Connor in Northampton.

Buyers liked the product, so it got him thinking that there was a market for his candles.

Father and son were on a car ride when they passed the old GBI Marketing building and decided to look at that for a possible location for the company.

Now, the rest is history.

He said he started making candles when he was young at Yankee Candle. But, he said he really learned how to make candles during the testing phase that he did in his basement. He said he experimented with many different kinds of wicks, wax blends and learned everything he could about the candle industry.

He said that much of his knowledge around candle making was self-taught. He said the candle industry has changed a lot since his father was making candles. There are new wax blends, new pouring machines and new wick technology.

In addition to the retail space, Kittredge said, the building has around 11,000 square feet of factory space where the scented candles are produced in closed vats so that the perfumes do not leak out.

Kringle has also bought property across the street from the Routes 5 and 10 factory, including the building that was once Aldo's Harley-Davidson, that it plans to use as a storage and shipping facility, if they receive the proper permits from the town.

If the planning stages go well, and the town boards allow it, Kittredge said that at some time in the future, he would like to open a small cafe to go along with the candle business.

According to Kittredge, the 128-acre farm on Cross Street that they bought in June for $1 million will allow them to use the agricultural property as an organic farm to grow produce and possibly livestock for use in the proposed restaurant.

"If the town allows us to have a restaurant, we would like to use locally grown organic produce and maybe have a couple of cows," he said.

The candle company president said that they are beginning sales with a line of 36 fragrances for their candles. "We also have a wide selection of home decor and holiday items available in the store," Kittredge said.

The younger Kittredge says that they settled on Bernardston as a location because the factory space that they found is in a "friendly, small-town setting" close to the highway and in a place where he will be able to talk with his customers on a daily basis and get a better idea for what products they actually want. to find new ideas to be developed at his company.

Posted by khabibieka on 11.39. Filed under Bernardston, Candle kringle, Kittredge II . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Feel free to leave a response