Savage Brothers Manufacturing in Elk Grove Village has been making the machines that make the candy we love for more than 150 years.

Today, the company’s candy-making equipment and chocolate-making equipment are used all over the world.

The company was founded in Chicago in 1855 by Richard and Edward Savage, whose parents had immigrated to the United States some 20 years earlier. The Savage family owned and operated the company until 1976, at which time the last generation of Savages did not produce any children to carry on the family business.

When the final living Savage, Mrs. Richard Savage, Jr., was well into her seventies, she passed the company to the present ownership group, headed up by Marino David Floreani.

While the company began with wood burning and coal-fired candy stoves, today’s Savage machines include gas and electric machinery for productive cooking and mixing of fudge, caramel, toffee, brittle, nougat, hard candy, coating nuts and popcorn and producing virtually any confection.

“I think the greatest challenges have been to stay competitive in the world market by introducing new solutions for our customers’ needs,” said long-time employee Robert Parmley, who acts as the firm’s administrator and spokesman.

Over the years, Savage Brothers has worked to make the centuries-old process of candy-making easier and more productive, resulting in digitally controlled cookers for consistent heating of temperature-sensitive ingredients like ganache as well as cooling tables, chocolate pumps and bowl lifts, which allow one person to safely lift and pour a hot kettle or mixing bowl.

Then, in the late 20th century, came diversification.

“We soon realized our machine fit the bakery industry’s needs to lift and pour mixing bowls as well,” Parmley said. “By providing the means to safely lift various size and shape containers, we introduced our company to not only the bakery industry, but to general food processing as well.

“And modifications to our chocolate systems became bakery icing systems, and our cookers could process much more than just sugar-based confections.

In addition to confectionery supply to more recent applications as food and bakery equipment, Savage Brothers has found success for its machinery in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical and material handling industries. Whatever the industry, Savage Brothers machines have found their niche.

“Savage Brothers has earned a reputation in the confectionery industry for making machines that last—with quality and durability,” Parmley said. “For example, we know of many instances of our cookers built around 1920 that are still making candy every day.

And that’s no small feat, said Parmley, who added that many of Savage’s clients are historic family-owned businesses as well.

“The confectionery industry is made up of hundreds if not thousands of multi-generational family-operated businesses,” he said. “Savage could not have remained continuously in business making machines for the same industry for 153 years unless these families appreciated that the same manufacturer of grandfather’s machines could help them be more productive today as well.”

And that couldn’t have been done, Parmley said, without the skill of the Savage employees.