R.M. Palmer Co. celebrates chocolate rabbit season

The bunny trail starts here, in a red brick building in West Reading.

Billboards along the Pennsylvania Turnpike extol the bargains to be found in Reading's retail outlets. But for more than half a century, this part of the state has been home to the equivalent of Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

When it comes to bringing the Easter bunny to houses around the world, the R.M. Palmer Co. is the original hip-hop posse.

While the company also makes chocolate candy for Christmas, Halloween and Valentine's Day, it's the Easter candy industry - where sales this year are projected at $1.9 billion - in which R.M. Palmer leaps head and cottontail above the competition. Founded by Richard M. Palmer Sr. in 1948 with second-hand equipment and four employees, the company now has more than 900 employees and commands a 34.5 percent majority of the total U.S. market for seasonal chocolate novelties.

A World War II veteran, Palmer sensed that America, weary of war rationing, was hankering to sink its sweet tooth back into Easter candy. He created a little chocolate bunny called Baby Binks. More than 50 Easter Sundays later, the company has sold more than 20 million of these babies to retailers as far away as Australia. And the characters from R.M. Palmer have multiplied like - , oh, you know. Among the 60 or so mostly hollow characters are the best-selling trio Honey, Yummy and Sunny, Peter B. Goode and the 'grandbunny of them all,' Grandbunny Heffelflopper.

Chocaholics beware: A visit to the R.M. Palmer Co. will turn you into an Easter basket case. The temptation begins from the moment you step inside the reception area. The scent of chocolate, faint at first, beckons you back through the offices, a warren of cubicles where an eight-member creative team devises new chocolate bunny characters. Enter the factory, and you discover the motherlode of chocolate. Say bye-bye, diet.

Using a combination of hand-decorating and computerized technology, employees and machines at Palmer can process up to 60,000 pounds of chocolate per day and 30 million pounds per year. Palmer invested heavily in new equipment a few years back but decided to keep the traditional assembly-line method.

'We didn't know whether the consumer wanted the new way or the old way,' says Jim Tucker, senior vice president of sales and marketing. 'So we do it both ways.'

On the computerized side, rabbit molds pass under a series of nozzles, which dab blue, yellow, pink and green. Blue goes on the pupils, yellow for the 'Whites' of the eyes. The pink and green are used to color other 'Highlights' such as an egg, basket or hair ribbon. Vibrations on the conveyor belts then level out the icing to make sure it's evenly distributed. The molds pass through a cooling tunnel, which solidifies the colors. Then comes the chocolate.

On the other side, the process is reversed. The chocolate bunnies are molded first. Eyes, ribbons and other details are added by hand.

And just how do they hollow out that chocolate?

'The chocolate is tumbled as it's cooled,' Tucker explains. Centrifugal force spins the chocolate away from the center, resulting in a hollow interior.

Palmer also makes solid chocolate rabbits.

While they're efficient, Palmer's laser scanners, double depositors, high speed foil-wrapping machines and electronic tracking devices don't have the personality of Angie Bruckart. Her shift starts at 3 p.m. but she'll often arrive as early as 1:15, where she sits in the lobby eating her lunch. Bruckhart, 70, has worked at Palmer for 30 years as a packer, inspector, decorator and all-around wisecracker.

'They think we're Lucy and Ethel,' she says of her friends. 'You know, like in 'I Love Lucy,' when she worked in the chocolate factory and she and Ethel were trying to eat all those pieces of chocolate.'

Working with chocolate bunnies all day doesn't faze her, though.

'I don't like hollow candy,' she says. 'I like butter cremes.'

Elsewhere, decorator Christine Diguardi affixes small orange carrots in the paw of Peter Rabbit, using liquid chocolate to hold it in place. Each tray holds 20 molds. Diguardi can move 19 trays per hour. 'This is really quite an art,' Tucker says.

R.M. Palmer produces more than 30 million eyes each year, using a patented 'eye machine.' Attaching the eyes requires the human touch. Employees affix the eyes by hand - between 5,000 and 10,000 per day.

'We do that on purpose,' Tucker says. 'We don't want this to be 'Stage Fright Bunny.' ''

A cross-eyed bunny will not pass the rabbit test at R.M. Palmer. Otherwise, a child in Decatur, Ill., could be sent screaming into therapy by an Easter morning encounter a bunny who looks like the Bride of Chucky.

'Can you imagine if the eyes looked like outer-space or as if they just came off of a five-day binge?' Tucker says. 'The whole thing we are keenly aware of is that these bunnies are given as gifts on Easter Sunday morning. If it isn't represented in just the right way with the attention to quality, it's not going to fare too well the next year.'

It speaks well of Richard M. Palmer Jr., president and board chairman, that he does not weigh 400 pounds. And you'll look in vain for a cotton tail on the seat of the pants of his conservative gray suit.

The kindly faced Palmer, whose father now serves as vice president on the board of directors, says the question he gets asked most often is, 'How can you be in a place that makes chocolate and not eat it all the time?'

The answer• 'I do eat it all the time,' he says. 'I've put on at least 30 pounds.'

Bunny Big Ears:
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1292
Height: Approximately 11.25 inches
Weight: 10 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: With ears that are taller than his body, Bunny Big Ears is endowed with extraordinary hearing powers. Unconfirmed reports had him being recruited by the CIA to intercept satellite transmissions from China and Libya. He also once tried out for the X-Men but lost out to Wolverine. Since his introduction in 1993, he has been Palmer's top-selling large Easter bunny. 'People like to eat the ears first because it's the most solid part of the bunny,' says president and chairman Richard M. Palmer Jr. For those who like just the ears, R.M. Palmer also sells candy bunny ears called simply 'All Ears.'

Lil Traveler
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1667
Height: Approximately 4.25 inches
Weight: 1.75 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: This globe-hopper likes to pose as an international man of mystery, trading in blackmarket floppy discs and chasing Playboy bunnies, but he's really an insurance salesman from Rabbit's Foot, Ariz. Still, with the R.M. Palmer Co. shipping bunnies as far away as Australia, Lil Traveler does get around. As for the Playboy bunnies, Palmer says, 'To the best of my knowledge, I believe that's true.'

Bikin' Bunny and Chopper Hopper
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1216
Height: 6 inches
Weight: 4 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: Authorities have linked this Bunny-and-Clyde duo to a string of carrot truck hijackings. Often hopped up on something, this freewheeling pair often stay in flop-houses and are known associates of the infamous Heck's Angels. But Palmer insists that these two are members of the Mild Bunch and that their outlaw reputation is undeserved. 'They are definitely born to be family-oriented,' he says.

Baby Binks
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1100
Height: Approximately 4.5 inches
Weight: 2 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: One of four charter characters introduced in 1948 by Richard Palmer Sr., Baby Binks is no stranger to the courts. Back in the '50s, Baby Binks lookalikes began to turn up on store shelves under another name. When the knockoffs were traced to a competitor, Palmer sued to protect his design patent. Search through the legal annals today, and you'll run across a court docket with the little guy's name on it. 'I talked with some of our lawyers,' says Palmer. 'And they still remember it as an important patent design case.'

Peter Peanut Bunny
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126940 1313
Height: Approximately 4.5 inches
Weight: 1.75 ounces.
Identifying marks/
behaviors: New to the R.M. Palmer family, Peter Peanut Bunny is hollow chocolate with a peanut butter coating. 'He's doing pretty well,' says Palmer. 'The peanut butter lovers who want the hollow bunnies didn't have anything to go after before.'

Pit Stop Pete
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1384
Height: 2.5 inches
Weight: 3.5 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: When attorneys at the Indianapolis 500 objected to Pete's original name of Indy Al, R.M. Palmer re-christened him Pit Stop Pete. The name change boosted sales from at least one of Palmer's big customers. 'Once we changed the name to Pete it became a much bigger success,' Palmer says. 'As it turned out, the name of the buyer for Kmart was Pete.'

Parsnip Pete
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1711
Height: Approximately 9 inches
Weight: 7 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: Introduced around 1968 by R.M. Palmer, this child of the '60s hopped a bus to San Francisco in 1967, where he played guitar for the Chocolate Watch Band. He later starred in the counterculture musical 'Hare!' A whiter shade of pale before the California sun turned him dark, Parsnip Pete claimed to be the inspiration for 'White Rabbit,' the psychedelic hit by Jefferson Airplane. He spent the '70s trying to collect royalties from the band.

The Professor
Inmate (bar code) number: 04126900 1261
Height: 11 inches
Weight: 14 ounces
Identifying marks/behaviors: The Professor is one of Palmer's largest Bunnies. His towering intellect makes him the big man on campus as well as a natural for the grand prize at Easter egg hunts. 'It's a real staple in our line,' says Jim Tucker, senior vice president of sales and marketing. 'He doesn't come cheap, but what professor does?'