At Ferrara Pan, he invented some of the company’s well-known brands and built the company into a pillar of the Chicago area’s long-standing candy tradition, along with companies such as Brach’s Confections and the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.

The company, now in west suburban Forest Park, stayed local even as others took their operations elsewhere. Peter Poulos, owner of Margie’s Candies on Western Avenue in Chicago, said he made note of that when Fannie May’s owners went bankrupt and people were lamenting that Chicago was no longer the candy capital it once was.

“They said they didn’t have any big companies based here,” Poulos said. “I said to Mayor (Richard) Daley, ‘What about Ferrara Pan?’ They’re a big, high-class company. They’re a high-quality company, and they’ve been a high-quality company for many years.”

Read more at the Chicago Tribune.