- Collin Street Bakery
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Collin Street Bakery sign in Corsicana, Texas; the company has three locations, the original bakeshop is in downtown Corsicana on Highway 31. The other one there is on I-45 at the 229 exit. The latest spot is in Waco @ I-35 and Hwy 31 ... while yet another one will open in December on I-20 at the Lindale exit in Tyler, TX.
The Collin Street Bakery is in Corsicana, and is world renown for its delicious DeLuxe Fruitcakes. They ship to all 50 states, US possessions and 195 foreign lands.
The Bakery is the proud recipient of the president's coveted "E-Award".
Contents
Early history
The bakery was founded in 1896 by August Wiederman, an immigrant from Wiesbaden, Germany.[1] With the help of local entrepreneur Tom McElwee, the bakery soon outgrew its original building, and required a new one in which the second floor was turned into a hotel. Celebrities such as Enrico Caruso and Will Rogers were sighted at the bakery, and in 1914 the Ringling Brothers Circus passed through town and ordered dozens of fruitcakes as Christmas gifts to be mailed to friends and family across the globe. In this way, the bakery entered the mail-order business. Lee W. McNutt, Harry Cook and Bob Rutherford purchased the bakery from Mr. Wiedmann in 1946.
Mail order sales
In reference to the mail order business started in 1947, bakery employees copied names and addresses from a myriad of phone books for "prospecting" list. The late L.W. McNutt Jr. initiated a direct marketing campaign to international customers. Under his expert direction, the bakery began accepting orders by mail, phone, fax and online. He also pioneered the use of a computerized database and also fine-tuned shipping methods to make delivery of the cakes more efficient. The third generation CEO, Bob McNutt has continued to refine all of these methods put in place by his father, L.W.
Notable clients
The descendants of the Ringling circus continue to order cakes. Monaco's Princess Caroline also places and annual order ... continuing her mother, Princess Grace's tradition of a Christmas DeLuxe for their family and friends. Hilton Hotels are a long time customer, as is Master Builders, S.A. of Brussels, Belgium. Also counted in the above group is Madison Square Gardens and the famous Vanna White. The company rejected an order from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini following the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The DeLuxe Fruitcake is shipped to ever nation you can name except Cuba and the country just mentioned.
Statistics
Fruitcake accounts for 98 percent of the bakery's total sales. The company sells about 3 million pounds of fruitcake each year, which equates to 1.5 million individual cakes.
The majority of orders are placed by mail and during a three-month period, October through November.
Despite the heavy demand, the bakery does not have a distributor, but sells its branded goods only at its 2 Corsicana stores and new location in Waco, and through mail-order. In the past some specialty Supermarkets, such as the defunct Amarraca in Pittsburgh's North Hills, have sold a private label version of the fruitcake.
Early history
- ^ Texas State Historical Commission. "Collin Street Bakery State Historical Marker". http://www.stoppingpoints.com/texas/sights.cgi?marker=Collin+Street+Bakery&cnty=navarro.
External links
- The Collin Street Bakery
- Noland, Claire. (2006, September 16). L.W. McNutt Jr., 81; His Company Sold Fruitcake to World. The Los Angeles Times
- Collin Street Bakery, Corsicana from the Handbook of Texas Online
Categories:- Companies based in Texas
- Bakeries of the United States
- Navarro County, Texas
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