St. Paul-based Pearson’s Candy Company, the 117-year-old maker of the Salted Nut Roll, Nut Goodie and other candies, disclosed this week it will close its West 7th Street manufacturing plant in September and end the jobs for 80 people. This follows three ownership changes since 2011, each one a sale to or between private equity-linked buyers, and it comes roughly two years after the current ownership group closed a sister factory in California under similar circumstances.

While it won’t be the end of the Nut Goodie or the Salted Nut Roll, it is the end of an iconic Minnesota business.

Pearson’s was founded in Minneapolis in 1909 and moved to its St. Paul facility in 1959. After passing through corporate owners including Continental Baking and a confectionery partnership in the 1960s and 1970s, the company was bought by longtime employees Larry Hassler and Judith Johnston in 1985 and run independently for the next 26 years.

That changed in 2011, when Hassler sold Pearson’s to Brynwood Partners, a Greenwich, Conn.-based private equity firm. Brynwood added the Bit-O-Honey brand to Pearson’s lineup in 2013 before selling the company in November 2018 to Spell Capital, a Minneapolis-based private equity firm, returning it to Minnesota ownership.

Spell held Pearson’s for four years. In a deal that closed in December 2022, it sold the candy business to California-based Annabelle Candy Co., while separately selling the St. Paul plant and land to Arizona-based Tenet Equity Funding for $8.5 million, according to the Star Tribune . Pearson’s has leased the building from Tenet since then.

Annabelle Candy, best known for its Rocky Road and Abba-Zaba bars, was not an independent buyer. Chicago-based private equity firm Promise Holdings had acquired Annabelle in December 2021, roughly a year before Annabelle purchased Pearson’s, according to Private Equity Wire.

Promise





Holdings went on to complete additional acquisitions of Edward Marc Brands, a Pennsylvania chocolate maker, and Seattle Gourmet Foods, maker of Dilettante Chocolates, merging all of the brands, including Pearson’s and Annabelle’s, into a combined operating company called Promise Confections in an October 2023 deal, according to Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery .

In 2024, an affiliate of Dallas-based private equity firm Paceline Equity Partners provided Promise Confections with a debt investment through a second-lien credit facility, according to Private Equity Wire.

Before Pearson’s plant closure was announced, Promise Confections had already shut down Annabelle Candy’s own factory in Hayward, California. The company announced the closure in July 2024, citing financial challenges including rising manufacturing and operating costs and the capital investment needed to maintain an aging facility. Forty-three employees lost their jobs when the plant closed.

Promise

Confections said Annabelle’s products would continue to be made at other facilities in the company’s network.

Separately, Annabelle had sold its Hayward property to investment firm Fortress for $13 million in 2022, according to reporting by Hoodline.

Promise Confections says Pearson’s brands will continue to be produced elsewhere in its manufacturing network after the St. Paul plant closes, following the same approach the company took after the Hayward closure.

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