Merckens Timeline
Over a Century of Sweet Innovation

Our Timeline

  • 1921
    August Merckens, Sr., a German immigrant, purchases Reed Chocolate Company (established 1908) and starts Merckens Chocolate Company of Buffalo, NY.
  • 1928
    Yucatan Vanilla Dark Chocolate is developed.
  • 1938
    Marquis Milk Chocolate is developed.
  • 1945
    Kuno Baedeker of Merckens Co. creates the first white chocolate in North America.
  • 1947
    Rainbow Confectionary Products is developed & introduced to market, instantly gaining popularity with candy-makers.
  • 1949
    A forerunner of today’s instant cocoa is manufactured in Mansfield and sent to service personnel overseas where it only needed the addition of water to make cocoa.
  • 1955
    Consolidated Foods purchases Merckens Chocolate Company.
  • 1961
    Welch Candy Company purchases Merckens and moves machinery to the historic Mansfield, MA plant first established by The Lowney Chocolate Company in 1903; Welch becomes part of National Biscuit Company in 1963.
  • 1967
    A system to manufacture Dutch cocoa is installed.

  • 1990
    Merckens Chocolate Company becomes a Grace Cocoa Company.
  • 1992
    Grace Cocoa opens new manufacturing services in Milwaukee, WI., which would come to house the production of Merckens in future years.
  • 1997
    ADM purchases Grace Cocoa Company. Merckens becomes a brand of ADM.
  • 2010
    Merckens production moves from the Mansfield plant to a new facility in Pennsylvania.
  • 2015
    Merckens becomes part of the Cargill family of brands.
  • 2021
    Merckens celebrates its 100th year anniversary.
  • 2022
    Commissioning begins of a state-of-the-art color injection line to optimize production and allow future expansion in colors and flavors.