When I bought Butterfields, I thought I was buying a candy company.
My mission felt simple. Get the candy back out there. Bring back the Buds. Protect the recipe. Keep the factory running. I knew the candy had history, a century of it, but I did not yet understand the place that held that history.
Over the last twelve years, Momeyer, North Carolina has taught me what Southern really means.
Our factory sits in a small town surrounded by soybean and tobacco fields. It is quiet here. The kind of quiet where you can hear the copper kettles from the parking lot when the windows are open and you can smell the peach candy right away. The kind of quiet where people notice things and care enough to act on what they notice.
Down the road are machine guys who know how to fix just about anything. When our copper kettles needed repair, they did not send us to a catalog. They came over, looked at the problem, and figured it out. They adjusted handles. They fabricated stainless steel crates by hand so we could carry the candy from the table to the copper sugar coater for its final dusting of sugar.
That kind of help does not come from a vendor. It comes from people who understand work, machinery, patience, and pride. People who believe that if something old is worth saving, sometimes you have to figure out how to make it work again with your own two hands.
Next door, my neighbor Charles runs a small machine shop. He is the kind of neighbor who notices everything, in the best possible way. If there is a snowstorm or a thunderstorm, he checks on our factory because he knows my son and I live forty miles away. He does not have to do that. He just does.
That is Momeyer.
Some of the women who package our candy today worked for the previous owner. When I brought Butterfields back, they were excited to come back too. They remember the company before I ever walked through the door. They know the candy. They know the rhythm of the factory. They know what needs to happen before I even think to ask.
They make sure the sugar truck gets unloaded at 7:30 in the morning. They secure the building every night before they leave. They protect the place almost like it belongs to them too.
Sometimes they are almost overprotective. But I love that. It tells me Butterfields is not just a job to them. It is a place they are proud to see alive again.
They tell us we run it like a family now. They say we are their extended family. And honestly, that is how it feels.
People from town still stop by and say, with genuine excitement, "I didn't know the candy company had been resurrected. We're so excited to have you here."
That word "resurrected" means something to me. Because the candy had not disappeared from people's memories. It was still here. It was in their stories. In the people who knew the previous owners. In the neighbors who remembered when the factory was running. In the town that was waiting, quietly, to see the doors open again.
I love that people stop by and talk. I love that they care whether this candy makes it. I love that they root for my son and me. I love that if I hire someone who might not work out, someone will gently let me know before I learn it the hard way. I love that when the trucks are loading up, someone will drive past and say, with a big grin, "Hey, you're really coming along."
That is Southern to me now.
It is not a slogan. It is not a marketing word. It is neighbors watching over your building when the weather turns bad. It is machine guys helping your copper kettles keep going. It is packaging women who came back because they remembered this place and were proud to see it alive again. It is someone noticing the trucks and smiling because they know it means business is growing. It is people telling you the truth. It is stories passed from one generation to another.
It is a whole town quietly deciding that if you are trying to bring something good back, they are going to help you.
When I first came to Butterfields, I thought I was saving a candy. Now I understand that this candy was never just a product. It belonged to a place. And that place has been teaching me, every single day, how to bring it back the right way.
Butterfields Candy is family-owned. But maybe more than that, it is kept up by a town.
And that is what is inside every Butterfields Bud. Not just fruit flavor. Not just a 1924 recipe. Not just copper-kettle candy.
It is Momeyer. It is memory. It is Southern hospitality in its most honest form.
It is a candy the South did not want to lose.
---
*Dena Manning is the steward of Butterfields Candy, a century-old North Carolina candy company she rescued in 2012. She personally responds to every customer and oversees every order. To learn more about the story behind the sweet, visit our [About page].*
*Family-owned. Town-kept. Southern-made since 1924.*