A family owned company responsible for varies candies including
marshmallow peeps and their various marshmallow cousins, as well as other candies like
mike and ikes. The founder of Just Born,
Samuel Born immigrated to the
United States from
Russia in
1910. In
1916 he was given the Keys to San Francisco for inventing the
Born Sucker Machine, which mechanically inserted sticks into
lollipops. Born opened a small candy making story in
Brooklyn,
New York in
1923. The phrase
just born was used to refer to the freshness of the daily made candy he was selling.
As the company grew, despite the Great Depression, they moved the company to its current home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It also began to acquire other companies including the Rodda Candy Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1953. It was from them that Just Born got marshmallow peeps, though at the time they had to be hand made a process that took over 27 hours. Bob Born the son of the founder worked to mechanize the process so that now over 3.8 million peeps are produced a day.