Esther Price Fine Chocolates was founded by its namesake in 1926. The longtime candymaker first worked out of her kitchen and sold to coworkers and neighbors.
As the business grew, she built a factory around her home on Wayne Avenue in Dayton. Since then, her recipes have gained a dedicated following spanning generations.
The company is now nearing its centennial. Its headquarters sits at the same spot, but it has expanded, adding three floors to its factory a few years ago.
“This was a residential area, where she bought one house, bought the next house, bought the next house, tear one down and kind of just built a plant,” said CEO Doug Dressman.
“Yeah, it's delicious candy and everybody loves a fun treat, but this is also history. We're a part of the community and that means a lot to people.”
Dressman has worked for the company for over 45 years. He took over as CEO from his father in law, who bought the business from Esther Price in 1976 with three partners.
The company now gets butter in 50 lb. cubes, heavy cream in 300 gallon totes, sugar in 2000 lb. totes, and chocolate in giant 10 pound bars.
Though the proportions have multiplied, Dressman said it's kept the recipes the same.
“We've always used good ingredients. We've always been proud of what we do. And at the end of the day, when people taste our products, they know it came from Esther Price,” Dressman said.
From sugar rationing to modern day
Esther Price opened her first store on Wayne Avenue in 1952. Since then, the company has added six more in Southwest Ohio. And ships to customers across the country.
Jessica Howard has worked at its Centerville retail store for just over a year.
“This place is a cultural touchstone,” Howard said. “Yeah, it's delicious candy and everybody loves a fun treat, but this is also history. We're a part of the community and that means a lot to people.”
She moved from out of state and hadn't heard of the candy maker. But, she says it's been easy to pick up on its history in the community. One customer shared how their relative helped Esther Price continue her business through World War II.
“During the sugar rationing, she would rip out her sugar coupon from her ration book and keep one for herself and then she would give the rest of her coupons to Esther so Esther could keep making candy during the World War,” Howard said.
Alice and Kevin Lewis visited an Esther Price store this spring. They brought their granddaughter, Lena, to shop for Easter candy. Lena is the third generation to get Esther Price Candy in her Easter basket.
“Oh, it's the best chocolate,” Alice said.
“Yeah, we've grown up on Esther Price,” Kevin said.
“So we always put it in the kids and the grandkids' Easter basket, so that's why we're here today,” Alice said.
Marilyn Schirmer is a longtime regular, who grew up in Beavercreek.
“She used to sell candy on her front porch,” Schirmer said. “She was so down to earth. Really, really special woman.”
Schirmer once packed candy for Esther Price herself. She was friends with Price’s grandson, who helped her get an interview.
The cost of cocoa beans more than tripled between the spring of 2023 and 2024. And, surpassed a record set in 1977.
“He told me to make sure I stuck my hands out the window so they'd be nice and cold when she saw me, because if you don't have cold hands, you can't pack chocolate, because you leave prints,” Schirmer said.
Now, Dressman says automation has changed much of its candy making.
“We don't have as many hands touching stuff and we're cooking in larger batches,” Dressman said.
But, Dressman said it has around the same number of employees Esther once did — around 150. A third of those work year-round in the retail stores. The factory employees work 40 weeks out of the year, overproducing and storing the rest.
Semi-loads of chocolate set to double in price
Its factory expansion has provided room for its new production lines on its first floor, packing lines on the second, and a warehouse on the third.
“So we're making everything down here, and then we'll send it upstairs to be packaged,” Dressman said. “We’ve got chocolate pumping in pipes everywhere.”
It's a precarious business, making chocolates. Once the giant bars are placed in a melter, the chocolate faces a tempering process, where machines precisely heat and cool the liquid. Then, its the sent through the factory’s unique plumbing, and irrigated to production lines, cascading over candy centers. What isn't used is cycled through again.
It's temperature is monitored through the whole process.
“If it gets too hot, it'll turn gray” Dressman said.
The chocolate now comes by the semi-load, and Dressman says those are set to double in price.
“This year it's been really crazy watching stocks. It is because you've got the bean market, we’ve got the dairy market we're looking at. We also look at the sugar market,” said Dressman.
The cost of cocoa beans more than tripled between the spring of 2023 and 2024. And, surpassed a record set in 1977. The beans can only be farmed within 20 degrees north and south of the equator. And, have been subject to extreme bouts of dry and windy weather.
Dressman says the candymaker might raise its prices soon as a result. For the smaller pieces, around 25 cents each. And for the iconic gold boxes, they’ll likely go up $3 or $4.
“We hope the price doesn't scare people off. I mean, you have to raise your price,” Dressman said.
The particular region of cocoa beans creates the unique flavor profile in gourmet chocolate sourced for Esther Price candies – part of the original recipe the company has worked to keep the same since Price passed on the business.
Dressman said what he calls “industrial” candy companies often use an oil-based coating as a replacement for chocolate, avoiding the volatile bean market and high-maintenance cocoa-based chocolate. But, the gourmet chocolate, sourced from the Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire regions of West Africa create the flavor profile the company has worked hard to keep the same.
“You can taste the grittiness on it,” Dressman said. “But when you eat a piece of our chocolate, our candies, it'll be just as smooth as silk on the palate of your mouth.”
Trial and error
The company now makes around 750,000 lbs of candy a year. That amount is set by their sales and Dressman says they’ve been down since a spike around 2020.
“So we're making a little bit less at that point in time,” Dressman said. “It just all depends how, you know, we have our stores and they do fairly well. And then the mail is pretty good. So it, you know, you're kind of just hanging in there.”
"... we have people that want to buy us all the time, but I think, what would that do to my employees? Would they be like little robots on a line?”
It’s made some changes over the years, adding product images to its boxes and changing the script font lettering of its logo. Esther Price herself designed the iconic gold boxes and red ribbon. And, Dressman said those are here to stay.
“We bought machines that were supposed to tie ribbons on them,” said Dressman. “They haven't quite worked. We haven't got them going. It's been years.”
The company is coming up on its 100 year anniversary. In that time, it has added new products, like individually wrapped candies sold at the checkout lines of Meijers and Kroger. And, partnered with local businesses like Warped Wing Brewery to make seasonal chocolate-themed beers and The Pine Club to offer after-meal sweets.
“We've made our mistakes. But you know what, the one thing, we never stop trying. If you just give up, you always gotta keep trying,” Dressman said. “And, you know, my father-in-law, that's what he always did. That's what Esther always did. So we have the same mentality. We keep trying and we keep trying to make good stuff.”
Dressman says he has had larger companies and private equity groups interested in buying Esther Price. But he’s not planning to sell any time soon.
“It takes away that candy store or that home business or that family-started business, and once you're only worried about the price of the stock of something, what does that do?” Dressman said. “I don't want this company to do that, because we have people that want to buy us all the time, but I think, what would that do to my employees? Would they be like little robots on a line?”