LUFKIN (KYTX) -- After nearly a century in business, Atkinson Candy Company is fighting for its future. It's one of a growing number of sugar-based companies upset by the United States' inflated sugar prices.
Millions of candies roll out the door at Atkinson every month--each of them containing more than 50% sugar. But some of Atkinson's lines aren't running like they used to.
Janice Brown knows all about it after 36 years on the plant floor. She used to run a peppermint machine.
"We normally, on an average, would run it every day," Brown said. "But we're now down to when needed, and it's not very much these days and it's due in part to the price of sugar."
"It's wrong because we're doing everything right," company president Eric Atkinson said. "We're doing a quality hob. We're doing all the things we're supposed to do."
Atkinson said the U.S. Sugar Program, which dates back to the depression, makes for an uneven playing field. On Friday candy companies outside the U.S. were paying 22 cents for a pound of sugar. Atkinson was paying the U.S. mandated price, which was more than double, at 49 cents per pound.
Inside Atkinson's sugar holding building, labels on the giant bags of sugar reveal an irony. The sugar is produced in Mexico.
"The jobs that we're saving with the U.S. Sugar Program are in Mexico. They're not in the United States."
Atkinson hasn't had to cut jobs, but the company's growth has been in Guatemala. He said those jobs could have been in Lufkin if U.S. sugar wasn't so expensive.
Employees like Brown hope "Made in America" will continue to sound as sweet as it tastes.
"Making a product here in the United States and thriving like we are, of course I'm proud," Brown said.
The 2012 Farm Bill is currently on the table with no changes to the U.S. Sugar Program. Atkinson will be traveling to Washington D.C. to talk with lawmakers later this summer.
