The European Candy Kettle Club has postponed its 2020 event to 2021 due to COVID-19.
The club had announced Oliver Schindler, owner and managing director of Sweet Tec, as this year’s recipient during the January 2020 ISM.
Traditionally the club honors someone in the confectionery industry each fall during a multi-day celebration hosted by the winner. However, the pandemic has greatly limited both international travel and in-person events, so the event has been rescheduled for next year.
“This decision was made with a heavy heart for the safety of our members and especially of the awardee and his guests. Mr. Oliver Schindler and his team will receive the award in 2021,” the club said. “We hope to see you all in Cologne in January 2021 or in Düsseldorf in February.”
Schindler, has been the owner and managing director of Toffee Tec in Boizenburg, in Northern Germany since 2003 and Sweet Tec since 2004.
He was literally born into the confectionery industry in 1965. His father, Jörg Schindler, was running Ragolds, founded in 1887, which had been owned by the Schindler family since 1936. Ragolds was known for its hard candies and cough drops such as Atemgold, Gletschereis and Rachengold.
Schindler got his MBA from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. He was marketing and sales manager at Ragolds, shareholder and managing director from 2001 to 2004.
Then he left to pursue his own vision, starting his own business. Ragolds closed its production in Karlsruhe at the end of 2005.
As a full service manufacturer, Sweet Tec develops private label projects for retail and industrial customers in the hard and soft caramel segments. In 2016, the company also started to produce fruit gums.
The company offers a full service that includes the development of product and packaging concepts, contract manufacturing, as well as the development of marketing concepts.
With about 27,000 square meters of production space, and more than 400 employees, Sweet Tec produces high quality sweets in one of the most modern confectionery production facilities in Europe. In fact, the company produces more than 40 million sweets and lollipops and 50 million fruit gums every day. And those products are exported to more than 40 countries.
Schindler has three children and has been married to Sonja Schindler since 2017.
The European Candy Kettle Club was founded in 1973 by the French chocolatier Guy Urbain and Don Gussow, founder of the American Candy Kettle Association. The ECKC´s purpose is to support the development of great and innovative sweets and confectionery all over Europe. Consisting of 30 machinery and ingredient suppliers from different European countries, the club awards the prestigious European Candy Kettle Award to a company in Europe every year.
