Two women in hairnets and smocks sit at the end of a conveyor belt as fully wrapped candy bars come shooting down the line at Pearson Candy Co.
The first woman grabs six bars and, in one fluid motion, slides them into a box while the second woman catches the next six and does the same.
Just days before Halloween, the year's biggest candy holiday, the work at St. Paul-based Pearson resembled that infamous "I Love Lucy" episode, in which Lucille Ball's character fails to keep up with chocolates coming down a factory line. Pearson workers are far more proficient than Lucy, but some of the factory's equipment was in use when that episode first aired in 1952.
"This is fairly old-school," Joe Driscoll, the new chief executive of Pearson, said on a recent tour of the factory. "It's what you might call vintage manufacturing."
It's been nearly a year since Spell Capital of Minneapolis bought Pearson from Brynwood Partners, a private equity firm in Connecticut, and eight months since it hired Driscoll to reorient the company.
Spell is spending about $3 million on capital improvement projects this year and committed to spending at least that much in each of the next two years. With that financial foundation, Driscoll hopes to update the company's old-time classics — such as Salted Nut Roll, Bit-O-Honey and Nut Goodies — and create new products that get Pearson growing.
"You can be retro and cool, but you just can't be dated," Driscoll said.
A marketer for much of his career, Driscoll worked at General Mills for 12 years, then for several years at Angie's Boomchickapop, and then became CEO of an Atlanta-based beverage startup. He jumped at the chance to return to the Twin Cities.