Iancu Văcărescu Street
Kandia was a chocolate and sugar factory in Timisoara. It was established before 1890. The company holds in its portfolio the Kandia, Rom and Laura chocolate brands, the Magura cake, the Sugus and Silvana candies.
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Kandia Kandia used to be a chocolate and sugary products in Timisoara. Probably the oldest in the present territory of Romania, established before 1890, it was a small candy workshop, which in 1895 began to produce chocolate candy and chocolate tablets. In 1917 it is named of Kandia, after an island in Greece.
The business took off, so in 1923 the construction of a new building began, and the factory was equipped with the most modern machinery of that time. Kandia became extremely valuable, as after 1920 it was moved to the consortium of the Bank of Timișoara. In the years of communism, Kandia was nationalized, and after 1989 it had a troubled history.
In 1964, the first chocolate bar from Romania, the famous"Rom"was launched, so that, in 1979, the first packaged cake in the country - "Măgura" also appeared.
In 1969, the products of the factory were exported to no less than 70 countries. Before the Revolution in 1989, 1,500 employees used to work there, mostly women.
The Kandia chocolate factory and the sugary products in Timișoara disappeared from the economic map of the country in the autumn of 2003, after it was bought by the company Excelent București. The Timisoara factory is closed and the main brands manufactured in Banat are transferred to Bucharest.
First it belonged to the group Julius Meinl, then Cadburyand Kraft, eventually beeing redeemed by Julius Meinl who changed its name to Kandia-Dulce.
In July 2010, Kandia held a 10-20% share in the chocolate tablets segment with brands Kandia and Laura, 5-10% in the sales of pralines and 10-20% in the chocolate bars segment.
Today, only one pit is left from the former factory, where the foundation of the halls built during the socialist period were placed and also an administrative building where the first workshop could have been placed.
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Kandia factory – Valeria’s 75th anniversary
Liana Maria Gomboşiu, Valeria Dr. Pintea. A family novel. Marineasa Publishing House, Timişoara, 2013, pp. 181-182
My grandmother was full of a youthful happiness – she was about to become three times twenty five, as her son Valeriu told her as a compliment, and she found this idea extremely funny and appropriate – and she told her daughter she intended her anniversary to take place in three steps: for the family, for the friends and for the neighbors in the house. The three parties have been imagined up to details by Valeria and my mother could do nothing else but comply with these wishes, as she did during childhood, becoming once again docile and lacking initiative. For the family supper, which also included some distant relatives, godchildren, all of them sincerely affectionate to Mama Mi, she chose a menu that took into account almost everybody’s preferences, as if she was offering each of the guests a present, as if she was thanking them for being around.
For the anniversary with her friends, Valeria stack to a refined menu, suitable for such an event. My mother was impressed by all the meals prepared according to ancient recipes which admitted no change. Grandmother did not economize anything, so the menu did not lack neither cream, chocolate cake, nor vermouth, in quantities that amazed my mother. She tried, shyly, to tell my grandmother that her guests were ladies aged between 70 and 85, who would scarcely try, politely, a slim slice of cake, some drops of vermouth on the bottom of the glass, whereas to cream or coffee… Grandmother looked at her in bewilderment and slight reproach: “My dear, I am not acquainted with the way women grow old in the “Kingdom”, but here, we ignore stories about food we have to avoid, we don’t fear cholesterol and an anniversary is an anniversary”. Mother had the opportunity to notice that Valeria’s friends enjoyed without any restriction all the food and did not drink just symbolically. They came nicely dressed, with their fur coats and the jewels they managed to save, hair-dressed, perfumed, each of them bringing a small present and flowers.
They were in high spirits and talkative, with nice memories from the past, with proofs of the way they managed to survive in those difficult years that were still continuing, with stories that did not lack irony towards their life spent throughout two world wars. With decency, they remembered the dear ones that disappeared, they did not complain about anything – it was the anniversary of their friend and they were supposed to surround her with all their affection. And Mama Mi was shining in joy, she was full of hope for her future anniversaries. The visit of her neighbors from the house, of the girls from the flower store and the pharmacy from the ground floor was as well full of warmth and joy.
Grandmother served them coffee (with cream, of course!), small cookies and liqueur. “You see, she told my mother, family, friends are the dearest to me, but good neighbors are priceless. They are always close to you, ready to help and to comfort you”.