It Started with Crayons
At sixteen, Mike Kittredge Sr. melted his old childhood crayons into a candle as a Christmas gift for his mother. That candle became The Yankee Candle Company*, which grew into the standard for the American candle industry. He sold the company in 1998 and retired from wax and wicks. At least, he thought he had.
A Stove, a School Project and an Idea That Wouldn’t Go Away
In 2008, his son Mick made his first candle on the family’s antique Queen Anne stove, just for fun. A year later, a college course asked him to create and promote a product, and the choice was easy.
Father and son spent days talking about what it would mean for Mick to follow in his footsteps. By the end, they both wanted to try.
“I felt a great sense of heritage. It was an idea that wouldn’t go away.”
Finding Bernardston
On a drive through Bernardston, Massachusetts, they found an 18,000-square-foot building for sale. The owner had been one of Mike Sr.’s best customers years before.
It was far more space than Mick thought he’d need. His father saw it differently: production here, shipping there, and a store up front. His view was that to be a good manufacturer, you have to sell your own product, because that’s how you learn why a candle sells or why it doesn’t.
Kringle Candle opened just before Christmas 2009, less than twenty miles down the same highway from where Yankee Candle began.
