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Dite Van Clief: Bergen County’s
Candy Man Can… And Does!
Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream?
The Candy Man can ‘cause he mixes it with love and
Makes the world taste good.
—THE CANDY MAN, by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
A
s a kid growing up in Englewood
Cliffs, Dite Van Clief just couldn’t get enough candy. He and his
twin sister, Tami, would hop on their
bicycles every Saturday morning to make
their weekly trek to the Cottage Shop in
Englewood Cliffs where Dite would,
before purchasing his weekly stash, study
the racks of candy for 20, 30, 40 minutes
at a clip: a kaleidoscope of colors, shapes,
textures, tastes, varieties, packaging,
designs, brands….
No wonder Halloween was his
favorite holiday. For Tami, however, it
was a day of hard physical labor. A doting sister, she would follow Dite on his
trick-or-treat rounds, empty pillow case
at the ready to give to him as he handed
her his overflowing sack of goodies to
take home, which she dutifully did. She
would then meet him at the next location on his strategically well-planned
route, ready to cart home his next haul.
And so it went until the end of the night,
when brother and sister would sit
together in their family room, sifting
through stacks of candy, sorting them,
tasting them, critiquing them and squealing when they discovered a particularly
rare or hard-to-find treat in their hoard.
Today, Dite Van Clief and Tami
Targovnik— in partnership with Peter
Leiendecker, another impassioned candy
fan—own and operate their own veritable Candy Land. Euro-American
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BC Magazine September/October 2010
THE
Brands (EAB), based in Paramus, is an
importer of gourmet specialty foods from
Europe, with an emphasis on confections.
Dite, Peter and Tami founded EAB
in 1990. Peter, a native German who
moved to Bergen County in 1983, had
already established an impressive history
in the importing industry. He was the first
to introduce Gummi bears and marzipan specialties, two of Germany’s most
popular confections, to the United States.
EAB’s offices were situated in the garage
of Peter’s Paramus house and in the basement of Tami’s house in Harrington Park,
which also served double duty as EAB’s
warehouse space. Its first import was the
original chocolate filled PeA Advent
Calendar from Germany.
In 1993, in order to expand the business, the trio leased office space in
Paramus, secured warehousing, and
hired a small sales and administrative
staff. Today, the company has 25 personnel. Ten of the 12 employees based
at the Paramus headquarters are Bergen
County residents.
In 1991, during one of his many trips
to Germany, Dite approached the export
manager of Ritter Sport, one of Germany’s
most popular confectionery brands. Dite
appreciated these fine quality chocolate
bars and felt a special connection to this
family-owned business, now run by the
third generation of Ritters, another brother
and sister team. The export manager
expressed doubt about EAB’s ability to
penetrate the U.S. market with Ritter
Sport, telling Dite, drily, “I can sell more
Ritter Sport out of the trunk of my
Mercedes, my good man.”
Undaunted, Dite pursued the Ritter
business and imported his first container
shortly thereafter. Seventeen years later,
in 2008, EAB was named Ritter Sport’s
Importer of the Year; the Milk Chocolate
with Whole Hazelnuts bar is now the #1
imported chocolate bar in the United States;
and in 2010 alone, EAB will have imported
more than 20 million chocolate bars.
During a recent trip to Europe, Dite
spotted the new Ritter Sport Strawberry
Crème bar. In addition to being greattasting, it had a wonderfully eye-popping, bright pink foil wrapper. Dite
brought a few of the Strawberry Crème
bars back with him to the office.
Everyone agreed: the bar is a winner; let’s
bring it in. Ritter refused.
In the interim, it occurred to Dite, Peter,
and Tami that the Strawberry Crème Bar
would be a perfect item to dedicate to the
cause of breast cancer awareness as many
members of the EAB family had relatives
and friends who had been touched by the
disease. The foil color was a natural, and
the product itself was superb.
As a family-owned small business,
EAB had always generously donated to
a variety of causes such as the Bergen
County Center for Food Action, New
BC 53 Charity:BC Wine Picks 9/2/10 10:19 PM Page 23
York City Food Bank, senior citizen
homes, educational programs and volunteer organizations.
So Dite and Peter flew to Germany
and presented the idea to Ritter Sport
management, explaining EAB’s concept
of developing the Strawberry Crème Bar
as a promotional item to support the fight
against breast cancer. EAB explained that
it would not make any profit on the sale
of this item; all proceeds would go directly
to support The Leslie Simon Breast Care
& Cytodiagnosis Center at the Englewood
Hospital & Medical Center, an outstanding Bergen County facility.
“It made sense to us to donate to our
local hospital, where so many people we
know have received such wonderful
care,” Dite explained. “We’re also proud
and fortunate that The Leslie Simon
Breast Care Center is a world-renowned
pioneer and leader in the diagnosis and
treatment of breast cancer.”
Ritter Management remained unconvinced. Dite remained equally convinced
to prevail. He requested that the presentation be passed on to the Ritter family.
Dite’s optimistic persistence and obvious passion paid off. The Ritters gave
their approval and green-lighted the
project; they themselves had family
members who had suffered from cancer. Furthermore, the Ritters wanted to
match EAB’s minimum pledge contribution, thereby bringing the total pledge
to $100,000. And so began an international partnership where a family-owned
chocolate manufacturer in Waldenbuch,
Germany teamed up with its familyowned importer in Paramus, New
Jersey, to support a cause that impacts
the lives of women and men around the
world. Both companies know that breast
cancer does not discriminate based on
country of origin.
EAB employees have embraced this
campaign with heart-felt enthusiasm.
They sport pink shirts at all trade shows,
sign off on orders with pink-ribbon pens
and nibble on Strawberry Crème bars
(now that’s a perk!) throughout the day.
EAB assigned its summer interns, Ian
Targovnik and Michael Wasserman, to
Ritter Sport’s Strawberry Crème bar is available at upscale gourmet delis, Kings, A&P, Walgreens, Target
Stores, Shop Rite, H Mart, Food Emporium, Stop ‘N Shop, and in the gift shop and Drapkin Café at
Englewood Hospital. All proceeds from the sale of this bar will be donated to The Leslie Simon Breast
Care & Cytodiagnosis Center.
In the Pink: The Euro-America Brands team supports the cause.
work full time on the campaign: developing lists, helping to produce sales and
promotional materials, compiling and
distributing press kits, and making warehouse runs for product. Ritter Sport’s
creative agency in New York City has
requested that EAB bring in mini
Strawberry Crème bars that the agency’s
guerilla marketing team can distribute
as samples at special events. The bar and
continued on page 60
2010 September/October BC Magazine
THE
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continued from page 59
Euro-American Brands owners (left to right): Dite Van Clief, Tami Targovnik, Peter Leiendecker
the cause will also be featured on Ritter
Sport’s Web site (ritter-sport.com) and
Facebook page, so that fans of Ritter
Sport around the world can generate
Resource Furniture is a proud supporter of
interest in like-minded projects within
their own communities.
Dite stopped making his beloved
weekly treks to the Cottage Shop in
Englewood Cliffs decades ago (it went
out of business). However, he now
makes almost daily rounds of the local
retailers that carry Ritter Sport. He
stands in front of the candy section and
studies it for 20, 30, 40 minutes at a clip:
the pricing, unit weight, shelf space,
shelf placement, merchandising, packaging, shipper displays, competition…
That’s how a local kid’s love of candy
grew into an entrepreneurial career
that led to a global network that
became the conduit through which
support is being given to a local hospital in Englewood, New Jersey, in its
mission to raise money for the early
detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. No candy can match the sweetness
of this story.
Beth Forman, a Paramus resident, has
worked for EAB for 11 years. She can be contacted at [email protected].
RESOURCE
FURNITURE
969 Third Avenue, 4 th Floor New York, NY 10022
212 753 2039
www.resourcefurniture.com
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BC Magazine September/October 2010
THE