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Cheezies’ No-Growth Business Model. In a business world, where “if you’re not growing, you’re dying,” is a common mantra, Thiessen shows that the Cheezie brand is an outlier. Originating in the United States as a typical, corporate confection company, the follies of Cheezies founder WT Hawkins (including rumours involving the Chicago mob and a jilted ex-wife) led to a move to Canada. The company down-sized through generations of family ownership to the point where it now produces just the one product. Their “Cheese Flavored Honeycomb Corn Puffs,” as the company once described their iconic product, are made with the original machinery at a plant that still closes on weekends. The company avoids advertising, fearing that any sort of publicity would just encourage more sales, which would lead to longer hours or – heaven forbid – expansion. It’s refreshing to read about a company that is happy to stay small and focus on producing just one thing well.

The Great Protest. Thiessen digs up a tale of a consumer strike action not covered in our national history texts. The cause: post-Second World War inflation, already on the heels of strict wartime rationing, led the price of chocolate bars to rise from five cents to eight. The protesters: Angry children from coast to coast. In 1947, Canadian youth banded together to put an end to such a strain on their allowances. Hundreds rose up in Edmonton, thousands in Ottawa – and Vancouver saw children launch an assault on the halls of the provincial legislature, “shouting and whistling” and chanting “We want five-cent chocolate bars,” according to the Edmonton Journal. Their boycotts, protests and near-riots were all for naught: the steady march of inflation will see you pay nearly two dollars for a chocolate bar these days.