All in the Family
Tina M. Moyer, CPA, never thought she would be the controller of a candy company — though she definitely dreamed of candies as a little girl and certainly was good with numbers. Those two worlds combined when she was a manager at what is now RotenbergMeril and she was offered the controller position at the family-run Smarties Candy Company in 1999.
Known for its twist wrapped roll of pastel candies and candy necklaces, the Smarties Candy Company was founded in 1949 when Edward Dee brought his family from England to New Jersey and set up operations in a rented facility. Today, Smarties is run by Dee’s granddaughters Liz Dee and Jessica Dee Sawyer and their cousin Sara Dee, who are all co-presidents. It operates a factory in Union, New Jersey, and another in Ontario, Canada, where Smarties are referred to as “Rockets.”
Having just celebrated its 70th anniversary, the candy company continues to grow in popularity in the U.S. and abroad due to its school- and kid-friendly qualities — vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut-free and allergy-free. A new brand, Smarties Squashies, recently debuted in the U.S. by Swizzels Matlow Co., a confectionary manufacturer in the U.K. who share family relations with the USA-based Dee family.
With global customer demands and routine accounting needs in the office, Tina’s job is always interesting. “It’s a lean machine here,” she explains. “I’m responsible for all of the accounting side of the business, banking, insurance renewals and human resources, plus I’m the administrator of the profit-sharing plan, and all the benefit programs run through me,” she says. Before working at Smarties, Tina was very familiar with the company, having audited Smarties Candy Company for 13 years beginning in 1986. “I remember driving here in a snowstorm in my boss’ Trans Am,” she remarks. Today, she’s responsible for handling the accounting needs of 75 employees in the U.S. and 85 employees in Canada. “I even prepare the tax returns of the individual owners.”
With its biggest customers being Walmart, Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Target to name a few, and producing and selling over 2 billion candy rolls per year, it’s a mature business. “Our top 20 customers cover 75 percent of our sales,” she says. It wasn’t always easy managing the finances for such an organization since not everyone looked at the candy business from an accounting perspective, but Tina was always up for the challenge — making one of her first tasks to modernize the accounting processes.
A Family Business
To those who know Tina, she fits right into the family-run business. Since graduating from Rutgers University in 1986, Tina has only ever had two real jobs — working for a small accounting practice that eventually morphed into RotenbergMeril and working at Smarties. While it’s exciting to have such a national brand with global operations, she loves that it is still run on a small scale. To Tina, it offers the best of both worlds. “Everybody here has a true desire to continue this business into the next generation,” she says.
Close ties with vendors and clients are also par for the course at Smarties; RotenbergMeril is still Smarties’ accounting firm. “I think that was one of the contingencies when I took this job,” she says jokingly. “Where can you go where you know everyone and know everything about a company before you switch positions?”
“Accounting is a great profession. A lot of people go this route and end up working for their clients. You have such a good background in corporate taxes or payroll, for example,” she adds, noting that math and science have always been her strong suits — skills she handed down to her children. Her son Ryan, age 24, is a physics teacher and her daughter Dayna, age 17, wants to be an aerospace engineer.