THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015 • THE BULLETIN
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TART TODAY
• Discoveries, breakthroughs,trends, namesin the news— the things you needto know to start out your day
It's Thursday, March 19, the 78th day of 2015. Thereare 287 days left in the year.
Bigfoot's cousin:Yeti
TRENDING
HAPPENINGS
probably not abear
OII —Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, will convene ahearing to discuss a bill to repeal a 40-year-old ban onexporting U.S. oil.
HISTORY Highlight:In1945, during World War II, 724 peoplewere killed when aJapanese dive bomber attacked the carrier USS Franklin off Japan; the ship, however, wassaved. Adolf Hitler ordered the destruction of Germanfacilities that could fall into Allied hands
in his so-called "Nero Decree," which was largely disregarded. In1687, French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle — the first European to navigate the length of the Mississippi River — was murdered by mutineers in present-day Texas. In1863,the Confederate cruiser Georgiana, onits maiden voyage,was scuttled off Charleston, South Carolina, to prevent it from falling into Union hands. In1918, Congress approved daylight saving time. In1920,the Senate rejected, for a second time, theTreaty of Versailles by avote of 49 in favor, 35 against, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval. In1931, NevadaGov.Fred Balzar signed ameasurelegalizing casino gambling. In1965,the wreck of the Confederate cruiser Georgianawas discovered by E.LeeSpence, 102 years to the dayafter it had been scuttled. In1979,the U.S. Houseof Representatives begantelevising its floor proceedings; the live feed wascarried by C-SPAN(Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network), inits debut. In1987,televangelist Jim Bakker resigned aschairman of his PTL ministry organization amidasexand moneyscandal involving Jessica Hahn, aformer church secretary. In1993, SupremeCourt Justice Byron White announced plans to retire. (White's departure paved thewayfor Ruth Bader Ginsburg to becomethe court's second female justice.) In2003, President George W. Bush ordered the start of war against Iraq. (Because of the time difference, it was early March 20 in Iraq.) Ten years age:Police in Citrus County, Florida, found the body of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, more than three weeks after she'd disappeared from her bedroom. (Convicted sex offender JohnEvander Couey was later sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and burying Jessica alive; he died of natural causes in September 2009.) Five years age:TheWhite House released anonline video of President Barack Obama making a fresh appeal directly to the people of Iran, saying a U.S. offer of diplomatic dialogue still stood, but that the Tehran government had chosen isolation. One year age:In her first news conference asFederal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen said with the job market still weak, the Fed intended to keepshort-term rates near zero for a "considerable" time andwould raise them only gradually. Toyota agreed to pay$1.2 billion to settle an investigation by the U.S. government, admitting that it had hidden information
about defects that caused Toyota andLexusvehiclesto accelerate unexpectedly, resulting in injuries and deaths.
BIRTHDAYS Theologian HansKung is 87. Jazz musician Ornette Coleman is 85. Author Philip Roth is 82. Actress Ursula Andress is 79. Singer Ruth Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) is 69. Actress Glenn Close is 68. Film producer HarveyWeinstein is 63. Actor Bruce Willis is 60. Actress-comedian Mary Scheer is 52. Actor Connor Trinneer is 46. Actress Abby Brammell is 36. — From wire reports
By Rachel Feltman
a living specimen where DNA degradation is no longer a Sorry, yeti fans: Re- concern." searchers have published Now a new paper in the jourfurther confirmation that nal ZooKeys takes another yetis are not, in fact, some step in solving this mysterious The Washington Post
As people turn away from artificial ingredients and become more healthconscious, makers of popular candy are scrambling to evolve. Here's a look at
unknown and ancient speWhat'?
By Drew Harweg The Washington Post
It started with the candy: a
chocolaty, chewy, toffeelike morsel styled after the pet name of the inventor's daughter: Tootsie Roll. But nearly 119
years after America's first bite, the future of one of the world's
In case you missed it, in mysterious bear. Eliecer Guti2013, a group of researchers errez,currentl y a postdoctorsequenced the genomes of al fellow at the Smithsonian
company of Chicago is under pressure to change after 10 years of
hair attributed to mysteri-
share. Mark Gail/The WashingtonPost
cash-register candy purchase, once such a reliable impulse buy, is under assault by online shopping. The world's biggest candymakers grappling with these threats are rushing to experiment and adapt. Nestle USA said earlier this year that it
would remove artificial flavors
don waved off retirement to
the past. Now, with its spiritless
sales and slipping profits, the $2 billion confectioner is facing what analysts call a hard truth for the modern sweets
industries: Candymakers must evolve or die.
Tootsie Roll's plateauing demand and changes in leadership have heated up pressure on the candy giant. Investors' calls for a takeoverhave mounted into a roar, with some saying thetraditionalist firmhas failed to adapt to today's hyper-competitive candy climate.
Within days of chief executive Melvin Gordon's death, in lateJanuary atage 95,the com-
pany's stock soared 13 percent,
ty Institute & Natural History
snowman. Hair of the "yeti" turned out to have a fairly tantalizing genome, according to their findings: Their dosest genetic match was
Museum at the University of Kansas, found that the genetic
to a paleolithic polar bear.
from either (or both) species.
The researchers theorized
overlap between brown bears
and polar bears makes iteasy to say that the sample came "What motivated us was that
holders, the Gordons noted the " intense competition" in t h e
claimed that
candy industry, but gave little hint of a change in corporate
ic analysis was in error. The hair samples actually matched a rare sub-group of brown bear found in the Himalayas. This bear is still
evidence really has to back up your daims.
probably related to the yeti
looked at," he said. "There's a
10 percent within five years to
keep leading his burgeoning win over more label-conscious 2,000-employeeempire.Gor- eaters. d on, who married into t h e
business in 1950, personally interviewed every worker from the foreman up and deeply involved himself in Tootsie Roll's increasingly complicated candy machine. "We have our own sugar refinery and our own ad agency," Gordon told the Chicago Tribune in 1990. "We make our own lollipop sticks. We even have our own trucking company, the Tootsie Roll Express."
chocolate bars, including its Stagnation Baby Ruth and Butterfinger, to But in recent years, analysts grab ingredient-watching can- said, the candymaker seemed dy consumers. to do less to develop its cash cows. The company made Stuckin the past fewer of the acquisitions, inBut Tootsie Roll, which has
yeti, aka the abominable
the original paper basically a living hybrid between this daimed that an undiscovered ancient bear and another bear species was lurking in species, one strange enough the Himalayas, and when we to inspire myths in the lo- read the paper we thought it cals who spotted it. was interesting that such a tiny If that sounds a little fishy piece of DNA was beingused to to you, pat yourself on the make this claim so confidentback: It's so fishy that it's ly," Gutierrez said. It's true that nowbeen debunked twice. new species — even large ones, In D e cember, a n oth- such as bears — are discovered er group of researchers all the time. But when all you've
Charms Blow Pop, Charleston maker of Oreo cookies and Chew, Dubble Bubble and Ju- Cadbury Creme Eggs, said last nior Mints. year it would reduce its snacks' Even into his 90s, Gor- sodium and saturated fat by
and colors from more than 250
tradedon itsname fordecades, has remained deeply stuck in
Institution, and Ronald Pine,
ous creatures, such as the affiliated with the Biodiversi-
that this might mean it was
annual revenue has flatlined or sunk. And with the recent
sumer marketplace. Even the
can pretend it's an unknown,
The119-yearold family-run Tootsie Roll
sliding market
most ic onic candymakers suddenlylooks doudierthan ever. The family-run Chicago confectioner's market share has slid for 10 straight years. Its death of its longtime patriarch, the legendary company looks more and more rudderless amid the bitter rivalries of America's $31 billion chocolate and sweets industries. Candy land is in chaos, shaken by slowing demand from health-conscious buyers and an increasingly global con-
genetic flub. Just because the
cies of bear that's running "yeti" isn't an unknown, mystearound the Himalayas. rious primate doesn't mean we
how Tootsie Roll's secretive empire began to melt.
In a letter last year to share-
tone."Our iconic brands evolve
in response to these shifting market conditions," they wrote, "yet remain pure and satisfying to the sweet tooth of the many
long-term consumers who enjoy them." Unlike most public companies, Tootsie Roll releases few financial details, routinely
dodges media interviews and ignores the expected niceties of corporate affairs, such as
regular calls with investment analysts. The candymaker is also vestments and strategic moves tight-lipped about a plan of sucthat marked its early days, and cession, which analysts said itsleadership appeared more unnerved institutional invesstagnant, piloted by a board tors for whom predictability in of directors that averaged old- leadership is a must. er than retirement age. Sales Ellen Gordon and other execgrowth slowed and profit mar- utives, through their assistants, gins slipped, from 50 percent in declined repeated requests to 2000to 35percent lastyear. talk. A Tootsie Roll represenOnce on equal footing with tative said, "If and when we do its rivals, Tootsie Roll gradually interviews, we will keep you in became overshadowed. Some mlIld. candy empires grew explosiveBut the Gordons have ally, including Hershey, the $22 ways been dear about their billion chocolate giant. Others insistence for the company's changed the industry through independence. "Tootsie Roll massive consolidations, includ- is not for sale," Ellen Gordon, ing Mars' purchase of gum whose family had then owned maker William Wrigley Jr. in the company for more than 2008, and food giant Kraft's 60 years, told Crain's Chicago buy of chocolate giant Cadbury Business in a rare 1995 intertwoyears later. view. "We are acquirers, we are But rather than defend the
t h e g e net- got is a tuft of hair, the DNA "The short answer is that there's a wide variation in that
segment of DNA that they
myth because of its rarity large variation within brown and size, but it's nothing so bears that overlaps with the exotic as an undiscovered
variation k nown
relic of bears long past.
bears, so actually you can't even tell the two species apart
When that study came out, the authors of the yeti paper admitted that their results
had probably been an error. But what really mattered
f o r p o l ar
based on that little species of DNA."
Butbecause brownbears are common in that region, there's
wasthat the"yeti"was some no reasonto sayit's apolarbear — and there's nothing indicatkind of bear, they said. "Importantly, f o r th e ing it's some unknown species. thrustof the paper as a In other words, it's a really whole, the conclusion that these Himalayan 'yeti' sam-
short fragment of DNA, and there's nothing that wouldn't
ples were certainly not from fit into the genome of a known a hitherto unknown primate species. is unaffected," they said in a statement. "We stressed in the original paper that DOES
the true identity of this in-
triguing animal needs to be refined, preferably by sequence data from fresh tissuesamples derived from
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not sellers."
company's independence, TootGiant investment funds, inyears. sie Roll leaders remained as cluding the world's largest asYet the long-redusive candy- quiet and secluded as ever. set manager BlackRock, own "At Tootsie Roll, they won't large stakes in the company, maker now helmed by Gordon's 83-year-old widow, Ellen, grant anyone an audience. but their influence has been whose family has owned the They're not available by tele- capped by the candymaker's company for generations, has phone, or in person. They don't fortifiedpower structure. kept its next moves secret, leav- appearatconferences,atsem Although the Gordons own ing analysts to question how inars, even at the door to greet just shy of 50 percent of the long the company will survive. any major fund managers," company's shares, a special "For a while the margins Schlang said. stock arrangement that gives "Ellen is terrific for being in their shares extra voting power were such and the brand name was such ... that we thought it her mid-80s, and Mel was ter- has left them with virtually unhad to beconsidered one ofthe rific in his early 90s, but they assailable corporate control. best companies we could find," were no longer 20 years old and Tootsie Roll's latest disapsaid Elliott Schlang, the found- entrepreneurial ... and there pointing financial results have er of the Great Lakes Review, was a level of complacency and only intensified takeover talk. "The buyer who ends up with an investment research firm, self-satisfaction," he added. "I one of the sharpest climbs in
don't know another company like that."
this," Nestle investor Tom Rus-
cover Tootsie Roll. "Butthe company got more lethargic. There was no visibility, no transparency ... and I don't know that they kept up
A rapidly changingindustry
with the times. In today's vi-
America, flummoxing many
do believe can be exploited far m ore broadly and deliver far more delight in far more ways." But some are happy to keep
ciously competitive world, I'm not sure that is adequate." Made famous through classic commercials like the "How
traditional brands. Nearly all
Tootsie Roll's business at a slow,
the growth in the confectionery business has gone to splashy
steady pace. Mario Gabelli, Tootsie Roll's biggest indepen-
product launches or rebrand-
dent shareholder and the bil-
and one of the last analysts to
M eanwhile, d emand f o r candy has flattened in North
this SUHDAY
so told Bloomberg in January, ''will end up with an icon that I
ed candy lines, leaving dassic lionaire founder behind asset sweets behind. m anager Gamco Investors,said name with a place in candy Hershey plans this year to he doesn'texpect the brand to history. The first penny candy launch Kit Kat White Minis, be groundbreaking, just stable to be individually wrapped, it Hershey's Caramels and Cool enough to profit from an occaproved a popular treat during Blasts spearmint "chews" for sional American craving. "I believe in the brand. If she the Great Depression and was people who don't want to spit later tucked into rations for outgum but,asa company ex- (Gordon) sells it, she sells it. She American troops in World War ecutive said, "don't have the pa- knows how to count marbles," II. The company says the 64 tience to totally work through a Gabelli said. "If she doesn't, our million oblong penny candies it mint." clients willbe content to still get makes every day are based on Mondelez Int e r national, a little more everyyear." many licks?" cartoons, Tootsie Roll became a household
the same 1896 recipe.
Led for more than 50 years by Gordon, who became one of the oldest leaders of a pub-
lic U.S. company, Tootsie Roll flourished through gobbling up a series of simple, old-fashioned candy brands, induding
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