Ganong Bros.

Ganong Bros. Limited was founded on June 5, 1873, as G. W. Ganong, Commission Merchant, Etc. James H. Ganong had convinced his brother, a teacher and aspiring physician named Gilbert Ganong, to start a grocery store with him in St. Stephen. They advertised their opening in the Saint Croix Courier, though the business began failing. They then started selling candy goods, then began manufacturing it themselves after struggling to get suppliers to do business with them.

In 1884, the brothers' partnership was dissolved; Gilbert maintained this business, while James left to focus on the St. Croix Soap Manufacturing Company, a soap manufacturer based in the same town.

Ganong Bros. Limited has been one of the Canadian chocolate industry's most important companies. Arthur Ganong was the first to make any sort of a wrapped chocolate bar; Ganong began selling the first chocolate bars in 1910. In 1920 they began using the brand name "Pal-o-Mine" for their chocolate bar.

The company also was the first to introduce a heart-shaped box of chocolates in North America. The heart-shaped boxes were originally used for presents over the Christmas season before it also succeeded around Valentine's Day.

In 1911, Ganong Bros. purchased the bankrupt White Candy Company in Saint John, New Brunswick and operated a factory there until 1931. In 1988, due to the rising costs of production, a plant was built in Bangkok, Thailand, due to lower labor costs and the close proximity to raw ingredients, and equipment from the St. Stephen factory was shipped there. The majority of the products from this factory is shipped to Canada. In 1990, a new factory was opened on Chocolate Drive, St. Stephen and continues to produce to this day. The old factory eventually became the Chocolate Museum.

In 1997, the company acquired the manufacturing and marketing license for fruit snacks under the Sunkist brand in Canada from Sunkist as well as Lipton.

Charlotte County's politics were always sharply divided, as Connors Brothers Limited and its employees overwhelmingly supported the Liberal Party's protectionism to keep fish from being sold to US merchants at a higher price, while Ganongs and its employees overwhelmingly supported the Conservative Party's free trade as it brought low-cost sugar by rail through Maine cheaper than from further away in Canada.

Today

In 2008, for the first time in its history, Ganong selected a president and CEO from outside the family. Doug Ettinger, who had been a senior executive in the food industry for 20 years, was approved by the Ganong board of directors as the top executive of Canada’s oldest candy company.

Mints

Ganong Bros.'s "double-thick" wintergreen mints were, until being discontinued in 2019, manufactured by the company since around 1889. They came in white and pink colours, were particularly larger than the average mint candy, and were coated with a powder. Since the company used traditional "antiquated equipment," manufacturing the mints had grown to be too costly. In 2021, they were temporarily re-released for a limited time.

Fruitland Chews

Fruitland Chews were a line of jelly fruit snacks that Ganong Bros. began manufacturing in 1989, as a means of competing against the dominating Betty Crocker. They used fruit purée to make them. The line was merged in 1997 when Ganong Bros. acquired the rights for Sunkist in Canada.