THE FOODIST / A CENTURY OF SWEETNESS

ONE WOMAN'S PASSION FOR HARD CONFECTIONS AND TRADITION SAVED BUTTERFIELDS CANDY 

 For a hundred years, the copper kettles at Butterfields Candy have turned out the same simple magic: hard fruit-flavored confections dusted in sugar, each bite bursting with flavor. The small factory in Nashville, North Carolina, may not look like much from the outside, but inside, history still hums.  As a result, Butterfields candy has been disappearing from candy jars since 1924.

 Founded in Winston-Salemas the Cane Candy Company, the business moved across towns and through hands, eventually taking root as Butterfields. Eight different candy-making families kept the tradition alive over the decades, even as times changed and factories elsewhere chased automation. By the late 1990s, Butterfields had settled into its name and its identity: a boutique maker of intensely flavored “buds,” with the peach variety—the Peach Bud—becoming its calling card. 

Dena Manning

The recession of 2009 nearly silenced the kettles for good. But in 2012, an energetic, business savvy woman named Dena Manning, who had loved the candy since childhood, bought the business out of dormancy. She risked her savings, rallied her family, and brought the factory back to life. 

Her son Harry joined her on the floor, while Joseph, another son, helped restore and modernize equipment. Together, they preserved the old-world methods—hand folding, rolling, and sugaring every batch—while also ensuring the company could meet modern demand. 

 Today, Butterfields still produces candies much as it did in 1924. Workers tend the kettles, pour out glowing sheets of sugar, cut them into neat cubes, and dust them lightly. The recipe has never been written down; it’s passed on in practice, not paper. That fidelity to craft is why each Peach Bud tastes like a bite of ripe fruit kissed with coconut. 

Customers describe the flavor as a burst of nostalgia—summer peaches remembered, childhood summers revisited. From its century-old foundation, Butterfields has grown into a small but spirited operation. The factory now turns out a thousand pounds of buds a day, shipping them across the country and even overseas. 

Weddings, holidays, and reunions feature the candies as keepsakes, tiny tokens of something both sweet and enduring. It is, in the end, more than candy. Butterfields is a reminder that craftsmanship and perseverance still count—that a family willing to put their hands to copper and sugar can rescue a tradition and carry it forward. After one hundred years, the buds are still blooming.