Oakdale Chocolate Festival 2008

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2009: 106 degrees. You people should be in Castroville, 30 degrees cooler. That's where I was. Much nicer. Think about it. Fees are much lower.

This show gives true meaning to the term 'starving vendor'. This is what this website is all about. Very, very hot. 103 degrees, but fortunately a breeze during the PM. Crowds much lower than past years'. Not much buying from the vendors. Received a letter from the Chamber saying that there were 50,000 for the event. Usually a very nice show with crowds over 80,000. I doubt that 50-number. Maybe closer to 35?

Sunday was wickedly slower and less people. Still pretty darn hot. Reports of some vendors being down 80 percent...whoa!. Perhaps people are 'boycotting' the festival because Hershey's Chocolate moved their factory to Mexico or it could be the economy, etc. Lots of people here without jobs, I suppose. Food and drink lines were VERY SMALL throughout the day... usually from 11-2, it's packed butt to butt!!!! Reports from the Hughson Fruit and Nut Festival are depressing. They fenced off the festival area and are now charging $2.00 per head. Vendors closed their booths early. Mid afternoon-late PM it was a ghost town.

HERSHEY'S CHOCOLATE FACTORY MOVES TO MEXICO!!!!

May 2007. On a warm May weekend in this Central Valley town, the irony was thick. As usual, the annual Chocolate Festival was drawing hordes of visitors. But Hershey's Co., Oakdale's biggest employer and the nation's biggest candy company is closing it's plant here, eliminating all 575 jobs. The company will open a factory in Monterrey, Mexico to handle the production. One man at the festival wore a T-shirt that said on the front: “Where did ‘the great American candy bar’ go?” Asked for the answer, he whirled around to display the back: “Mexico!”

As stated in the article, the move will put almost 600 people out of work. I know, of course, that money is important to any business, that goes without saying, but with the experience I’ve had with companies outsourcing out of country, I can’t say it’s leaving a positive impression. I haven’t had a reason to really research what’s going on with the company — up until a month ago my chocolate concerns stopped at how much I had left on the snack shelf in the cupboard! — but now I’m interested and wondering if Hershey has a real need to be trying to save money or if it’s just a general big-company-moving-to-save-big-bucks situation. The message board where I found the article was full of people declaring they were going to swear off Hershey’s and while I can’t say for sure that I’m going to be swearing off anything, I have a confession to make: I’m not a big Hershey fan in the first place. Not necessarily of the company, I mean with the chocolate itself. Something changed a few years ago and the chocolate doesn’t taste real to me anymore and the mouth feel is getting waxy. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that too?

The 113-year-old company has described the plant shutdown as part of a “global supply-chain transformation.” Overall, about 3,000 of Hershey’s 13,000 workers will lose their jobs, including as many as 900 in the company’s hometown of Hershey, Pa. By 2010, Hershey says, the moves will save shareholders as much as $190 million annually