How Sweet It Is
As a child, Nick Trifelos lived the proverbial dream: He grew up as a kid in a candy store. Only the store wasn’t just a small shop with customers stopping in to sample and purchase sweets. Behind the retail space was a 152,000-square-foot candy factory, pumping out up to 60,000 pounds of everything from Buckeyes to buttercreams each day.
The Anthony-Thomas Candy Co. was founded by the father-son team of Anthony and Thomas Zanetos as a small business in Franklinton in 1952. Today, it’s the Midwest’s largest family-run candy company, representing five generations. “Anthony and Thomas were my great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather,” Trifelos says. In 2020, he was hired as a sales and marketing manager; his grandfather and mother continue to work for the company alongside him.
The company is celebrating its 70th birthday this year, but its history extends over a century, going back to 1907 when Anthony Zanetos arrived in Columbus after immigrating from Greece. Trifelos said his great-great-grandpa was “an apprentice candymaker, and he really loved the art of making candy.” After owning several different food businesses in partnership with Thomas, the two realized that their candies were outselling everything else. That’s when they decided to make candy their full-time jobs, charting the course for the future of both the company and the family.
As the Zanetos family grew, the company expanded right along with it. In 1970, Anthony-Thomas moved to a larger production facility in Franklinton. By the early 1990s, they had outgrown that as well, and settled into a new factory on the West Side, which now has nearly 100 employees. Today, they operate 13 retail shops across Columbus, including one at the factory. And while Franklinton is no longer the center of operations, the family retains ties in the community, lunching together every Friday at Tommy’s Diner, just down the block from their former production facility.
Something that hasn’t changed over the years is the company’s dedication to making quality confections. When I visited the Upper Arlington store in late January, the shelves were stocked with almost every type of chocolate imaginable, including peppermint-filled, dark chocolate coconut, milk chocolate crunch and classic filled buttercreams. Sugar-free options were available, as well as roasted nuts and chocolate-covered pretzels. My sons picked out some solid chocolates, colorfully wrapped and shaped like cars, that they joyfully ate on the way home.
One thing we didn’t try were the Buckeyes, and apparently that made us an exception: The company sold over 8 million of them last year. Theirs are finished with a distinctive glossy coat that comes from a special heating and cooling process, and stands out from competitors.
“We didn’t create the Buckeye, but we feel we perfected it,” Trifelos says.
An assortment of Anthony-Thomas candies, including light and dark chocolates
(left) Mixing caramel in the factory (right) The process of making Pecan Dainties starts with caramel being added to piles of pecans.
ON THE JOB WITH MOM
Trifelos compares his life to both My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Picture a close-knit family managing Wonka’s workshop, and you might have a sense of Trifelos’s upbringing. “I grew up with this company being kind of like a babysitter for me,” he says.
He tells stories of helping on the factory line as a child, watching piece after piece of chocolate get packed carefully into boxes. He remembers the large Easter open houses they would hold at the plant every year (prior to COVID), where they would host up to 6,000 people eager to celebrate the season. Once, the hired Easter bunny was taking a break when Trifelos and a cousin played a prank, taking the bunny’s oversized stuffed carrot and running it through the factory, confusing the bunny and the guests.
While it sounds like a dream for a child, working with your family full-time as an adult can present challenges. “Most people cannot work with family members and then see them after work and on the weekends all the time,” Trifelos says. “We are just able to do that.” His mom is both his direct boss and also his “best friend,” and he’ll frequently go to her home for dinner after they work a full day together.
The family feeling extends to employees as well. Retail Operations Manager Kathy Robbins is celebrating 30 years with the company this year, after starting as a part-time retail employee at a kiosk in the now-defunct Westland Mall. Part of what has kept her with the company for so long is the relationships.
“Ownership is great to work with. It just seems like you’re part of their family,” she says, adding that her own kids chose to work for Anthony-Thomas while in high school and college.
But when the family is such an integral part of the business, tragedy can strike both together. The Zanetos family experienced this firsthand in 2020, when Trifelos’s Uncle Steve Scully passed away suddenly from COVID. He had been with the company for 21 years, serving as the vice president of operations and running the production side.
“When you have a loss, you feel it not only on the work side, but on the personal side,” Trifelos says. “With his passing, we had to take on his responsibilities and learn and fast track. And we’ll never know all he knew.”
Trifelos has found himself spending more time on the factory floor after his uncle’s passing, pitching in to keep things moving forward. It’s what family does.
(left) Worker Phillip Tanksley on the factory floor; (right) A worker checks the Pecan Dainties after they have been covered with chocolate.
Some Anthony-Thomas products, including their famous Buckeyes
CARING FOR THE COMMUNITY
Being part of the Columbus community has always been important to the Zanetos family. Trifelos said that, growing up, he would attend Ohio State football games with his grandpa, befriending those seated around them by bringing Buckeyes to share with the crowd. Beyond the candy business, his grandfather was involved in establishing the Greek Orthodox church in the Short North. And they’ve partnered with the community in many other ways, from those famed Easter open houses to the fundraising arm of the business, an aspect of Anthony-Thomas that Trifelos is especially proud of. Students can resell Anthony-Thomas candy purchased in bulk to fund extracurricular programs.
Jason McGee, an architecture instructor at Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools, has had his students selling Anthony-Thomas chocolate bars for the past six years, generally raising about $1,000 annually. This year, the money will support a trip to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania. McGee says the brand is so popular, the hardest part for him is making sure he orders enough every year.
Just as candy fundraisers have been going on for generations, bringing people together in stores for the same sweet experience their great-great-grandparents had is something Trifelos appreciates about his work. “We’re really focused on keeping the tradition alive.”
Learn more about the company and its products at anthony-thomas.com.
