Candy importer and manufacturer David E. Babiarz passed away peacefully at home on Sept. 1 from complications of diabetes. He was 61.

 

Babiarz, who succeeded his father, Emil, at the family’s Dae Julie Co., in Des Plaines, Ill, in the 1960s, evolved the company into a leading confectionery importer. At one time, industry sources estimated that the company handled up to 15% of all U.S. candy imports.

 

In 1990, he founded Candyland Candies, Inc. and built a 120,000-sq.-ft., state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Des Plaines. After selling the company to Favorite Brands in 1997, Babiarz re-entered the confectionery industry several years later with a new company, Candy Tech LLC. The Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based business established a candy-manufacturing operation in China. (See Candy Industry, Jan. 2007).

 

Babiarz is survived by his wife Barbara (nee Berger), daughters Barbara Jane (Lennart) Steiner and Jennifer (Scott) Morvig, son David Jr. (Katie) Babiarz and sister Julie (Christopher) Lopatowski.