Building a Fruitcake Empire

Hayden Crawford, a partner in Collin Street Bakery, discusses the secrets of his company’s longtime success, including what makes its world-famous fruitcakes so sought-after and the next chapter of its growth.

How did Collin Street Bakery begin?
August Weidmann, a German immigrant who settled in Corsicana, Texas, founded it as a small bread and pastry bakery in 1896. A few years later, a local entrepreneur partnered with him, and they soon moved it to another location with a second-floor hotel and bigger production facility.

My business partner’s family, the McNutts, headed a group that bought it from them in the 1940s. In 1951, after many years in the regional bread business, the company moved out of that increasingly competitive industry and shifted its attention to fruitcake. The rest is history.

How did your fruitcakes become so popular?
In the 1890s, Corsicana became the largest oil producer in the world, enticing people and businesses to pour in. Among our hotel’s visitors were celebrities such as John Ringling, who bought our fruitcakes and gave them out as gifts when he traveled with his circus. Those recipients then contacted us for more, and our mail-order business—one of the first in the country—began, allowing people to order from practically anywhere in the world. That was also possible because of the fruitcake itself: it’s dense, so it would last much longer than other foods at the time.

Johnny Carson famously joked about fruitcake. What kind of effect did that have?
The jokes and skits on his show in the 1980s brought in an era of fruitcake negativity. Before then, Collin Street Bakery had a very strong corporate business. But in the years following, we saw such sales continually decline—no doubt because these companies were concerned about how their gift might be perceived.

Here’s how bad it got: even perception was going against us. We’d ask people, “Do you like fruitcake?” and most would say no. But when we asked the same folks whether they had ever tasted it, the answer would also be no. That stigma lasted for years. Luckily, with it a few generations behind us, corporate sales have since returned.

What makes your fruitcakes so special?
Almost a third of every one we produce is pecans, and the remainder is a delicious medley of glacé fruits, including pineapple, cherries, raisins, and papaya, that are bound together by a secret batter moistened with locally harvested clover and wildflower honey. In addition, each DeLuxe Fruitcake—our original version—is hand decorated, making them slightly different and one of a kind.

Has the original recipe ever changed?
Yes, slightly. Gus’s original recipe called for walnuts since they were abundant in Germany. But when he arrived in Corsicana, he no doubt realized that there were few (if any) walnuts around but plenty of pecans, so he used them instead. Also, back in the seventies, we switched from butter to margarine because the former tended to go bad on those long transatlantic trips. However, since travel is light years more efficient today, we’re moving back to butter.

Finally, there’s the matter of citron. For generations, bakers and homemakers would use it in small amounts as a balance to sugar; without it, a cake can taste too sweet. It turned out, though, that some of our suppliers were having trouble getting actual citron and replaced it with specially treated turnips, which delivered a similar taste and texture for a fraction of the price. When we discovered this, we immediately sought a piquant-tasting alternative and found it in papaya, something we were already growing at our farms in Costa Rica.

How many stores do you have?
We have two in Corsicana: the original bakeshop in historic downtown and the newer location on its outskirts on I-45. Initially, some of our execs worried that building the latter would cannibalize the former’s sales since it would be just ten minutes away in the same town, but they are both very popular with a particular audience. Some people like the convenience and beauty of our newer I-45 location, while others still prefer the ambience and coziness of the downtown one.

We also have a bakeshop on I-35 in Waco, just north of Baylor University; it’s our largest store at around 9,000 square feet. And on I-20 in Lindale, near Tyler, we have our fourth location, featuring gorgeous architecture with a smaller, more relaxed footprint.

You started creating different versions of your fruitcake. How did that help your business?
For years, we only offered the DeLuxe, our classic Christmas cake. But the cost of the skilled manpower needed to efficiently hand-decorate it with concentric rings of pecans and carefully placed fruit kept getting more and more expensive. So we recently created our Classic Fruitcake, which is the exact same recipe with a generous helping of pecans just sprinkled across the top. The labor savings are significant, allowing us to sell this cake at a more affordable cost.

You’re also in wholesale. Tell us about that branch of your business:
Funny enough, it was my father—who was the bakery’s marketing guru for years—who came up with the tagline “Never sold in stores” during fruitcake’s heyday. We made it exclusive so you could only buy one of our cakes if you shopped directly with us. Now, with the internet as ubiquitous as it is and reseller shops seemingly appearing on every corner, we offer multiple ways you can find our products, including in your favorite grocery store during the holidays as well as on Amazon’s, Costco’s, and Walmart’s websites.

What’s next for Collin Street Bakery?
I’m excited to say that we’ve started rolling out our foods into grocery stores across the country! We also got interesting feedback from bicyclists, who told us they eat our fruitcake because it’s a calorie-dense product that gives them long-lasting energy; based on this input, we created energy bars. Overall, though, we’re still a nearly 130-year-old family business baking fruitcake that means so much to so many. That’s why we love coming to work every day.

For more info, visit collinstreet.com