Jolly Rancher is an American brand of sweet hard candy, gummies, jelly beans, lollipops, and sour bites,[1] and a line of soda put out by Elizabeth Beverage Company in 2004.[2] Originally created in Colorado in the 1950s, the Jolly Rancher brand has been owned by The Hershey Company since 1996.
History
Bill and Dorothy Harmsen founded the Jolly Rancher Company in 1949, choosing the name to give the impression of a friendly Western company, and opened their first Jolly Rancher Ice Cream Store in Golden, Colorado on May 28, 1949. Finding that ice cream was hard to sell in the cold winter months, they added a line of bulk and boxed chocolate that was provided by a small candy firm in the Denver area. Jolly Rancher Company opened a number of franchise stores in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska and provided both chocolate candies and a five cent hot cinnamon taffy stick that proved to be very popular. It was this candy's popularity that caused Jolly Rancher Company to expand its hard candy line.[3]