• #194: Pez – Part 1 – The Mint that Became a Collectable

  • Feb 26 2025
  • Length: 17 mins
  • Podcast

#194: Pez – Part 1 – The Mint that Became a Collectable

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  • What do you do when you think cigarette smoke is disgusting and you are a bit of a germaphobe? Create a collectable candy empire, of course. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Waukee Feet Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. And I'm Dave Young, alongside Stephen Semple, where we're talking about empires. And Stephen whispered the subject of today's episode into my ear, and immediately, immediately my thoughts went not to my childhood as usually happens. Stephen Semple: Well, this is a variation. Can I guess where your brain went? Dave Young: Go ahead. Stephen Semple: Seinfeld? Dave Young: No, not even se Seinfeld. Stephen Semple: Okay. All right. Dave Young: I think it's on Apple, the current, maybe it's not on Apple. Maybe it's Prime. I'm not sure. But it's a current series, sci-fi series going on called Silo. Stephen Semple: Oh, yes, yes. I've started watching it. Yes. Dave Young: And they have these artifacts and somebody has a Pez dispenser, this Silo, futuristic, that mankind's been living in these silos for 350 years. They can't come out, but there's some people have these trinkets from the past and there's a Pez dispenser amongst them. Stephen Semple: That's right. Dave Young: They have no idea what it is. Stephen Semple: Right, yeah. And then there's that famous Seinfeld episode with the Pez dispenser in it as well. That was super popular one, where Jerry basically is being pain in the neck with this Pez dispenser. Yeah, but they're huge. They sell about 75 million Pez dispensers a year, still, across 80 countries, as well as five billion individual Pez candies. There's like 900 employees working for Pez. Dave Young: Wow. Okay. And the candy's nothing special, other than it's all uniform, like little bricks. It's almost like eating a Lego and almost as flavorful. Stephen Semple: Yeah, there you go. Well, I can't comment, because I've never eaten a Lego, but... Dave Young: Well, you didn't have my childhood, Stephen. Stephen Semple: So, the Pez company starts in 1927. I didn't realize how old it was. And it was started by Edward Haas III, and he lived in Vienna, and he couldn't stand the smell of smoke. And he's running this family, this successful family business, making a special kind of baking powder that was invented by his grandfather. So he was already a business person making this baking powder. And Edwin took the business in a new direction when he created the world's first ready mix cake mixture during World War I. Dave Young: Oh, wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And so, by the late 1920s, they have a number of factories in Europe, and at this time, smoking booms with the invention of the rolling machine, the automated rolling machine, which suddenly makes cigarettes cheap and plentiful. And if you want to learn more about this trend, go back to episode 85 for American tobacco. So first, Dave, can you believe that was like a year and a half ago that we recorded that? Dave Young: No kidding, yeah, the automatic rolling machines. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So there's a whole episode really on that. Go back and check it out. It's actually quite a fascinating story. Dave Young: But this guy, he doesn't like smoke. Stephen Semple: He does not like it. And one of the other things that happened is during World War I, soldiers are provided cigarettes as rations. And it's really interesting.
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