“Gerard and I have been married for 34 years. He was born and raised in Saco, and we met after I graduated from high school. We were married two years later and raised our kids in Saco. We're both creative and have always dreamed of running a business of our own together.
Over the years, we’ve tried a lot of different things. Gerard managed in the fast food industry and built houses for a long time. I’ve worked in banking, taught, homeschooled our kids, started an Etsy shop, worked in the medical field, and have taken on many other roles. So between the two of us, we have a lot of life experience.
As Gerard got older, he started to realize how much building houses with his brother was taking a toll on his body. So he started looking for an alternative career. He decided to try custom cake decorating, something he had been doing on the side since we got married. Because we had limited funds when planning our wedding, rather than paying a baker to make our wedding cake, Gerard taught himself how to do cake decorating. He created an absolutely beautiful multi-tiered cake for us. He really enjoyed that process, so we decided to turn our basement into a certified bakery in 2018.
At the same time, our friend Linda was operating a small business called The Maine Needham Company out of her home in Norway, Maine. Since 2007, she had put her heart and soul into making Needhams, which are a traditional candy with a coconut center coated in dark chocolate. But life brings change, and Linda's story took her on a different adventure. This is really where our story begins.
When Linda pitched the idea of selling her business to us, we were really intrigued by the idea. Gerard spent a few Saturdays at her home learning about her process. One weekend. I went with him to see what it was all about. As we drove away, we looked at each other with big smiles on our faces—we both knew right then and there that the business had great potential and it was something we wanted to do together.
So on a rainy day in April 2019, we rented a U-Haul and drove to Norway to load up her equipment and bring it back home. From there, we converted the whole basement into a candy production facility. We quickly realized that Gerard couldn’t do both custom cakes and needhams, so we moved our focus solely to producing the candy. After three and a half years of working out of our home, we realized we needed more space to grow. So, in June of 2023, we moved our operation to a commercial production space custom built for our needs and located in our hometown, Saco.
Early on, we fell in love with not just making the candy but with the story and the nostalgia behind it. Needhams are a beloved Maine candy because they come with special stories and memories attached to them. I wanted to know more, so I began researching their origins. Like any good Maine story, the line between fact and folklore is a little blurry.
Legend has it that in 1872, candy maker John Seavey introduced Needhams, and his company continued producing them until the mid-1960s. Eventually, the rights to the product were sold to Lou-Rod Candy in Lewiston, which continued producing Needhams until they went out of business in the mid-90’s. After that, there was no primary producer of Needhams, though many Maine candy makers did and do produce them as part of their offerings. However, we are the only company that focuses solely on making and selling Needhams as our specialty.
When you think about Needhams, the first thing that makes them specific and special to Maine is the potatoes. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the hardworking, family-focused folks who are proud of their down-to-earth roots. It’s part of what makes Needhams so special, and people are drawn to that.
A lot of our customers will tell us how much the candy reminds them of their childhood. We’ve heard from tourists that one of their favorite things to do is get Needhams while visiting Maine. A lot of people have fond memories of their own parents or grandparents making homemade Needhams also.
For this reason, we wanted to find a way to establish some sort of celebration for the candy. Not as a means to highlight our product specifically, but rather to celebrate a precious Maine tradition. So I decided to reach out to our local state representative to see if the government would declare a Maine Needham Celebration Day for the 150th anniversary in 2022.
While that effort didn’t succeed, the following year, a bill to establish Maine Needham Day was signed into law in 2023. That year, we celebrated the first Maine Needham Day on the last Saturday in September, a nod to the potato harvest season, and started the Maine Needham Festival.
Establishing these celebrations has been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey for me. I am just so proud of it. When we hold our festival, we bring together other candymakers who also make Needhams. That’s what I love most about it. We’re not trying to put our company at the focus of these initiatives. Rather, our goal is to celebrate the memory, tradition and preservation of Needhams for the people of Maine.
We are planning our third festival this year, and as part of this, we always try to put in a strong effort to collaborate with other small business owners. Maine is such a special place because there really is a unique sense of camaraderie here that is hard to find anywhere else. It’s amazing to make connections within the community. It’s been clear to us as business owners that it’s not about competition here, but rather about connection.
We tell people we love making and selling chocolate because we really are very passionate about the work we do. But more than anything, it’s about our love for Maine and upholding its stories and traditions.
The opportunity to run this business with Gerard has been a dream come true.This work fits so well into our personalities and showcases our innate skill sets. Overall, it’s just been a joy. We are grateful to do this for a living, and honored to be a part of this community.”
— Malaika Picard, Co-Owner of Maine Needham Company
For more information about Maine Needhams, visit their website:
https://www.maineneedhams.com/
