Atkinson Candy Co. has stayed true to its Texas roots for nearly 75 years, but soaring U.S. prices for sugar, its main ingredient, have the sweets maker rethinking its 1991 decision not to move to Mexico.

"I've got to tell you, right now that seems like a poor decision," said Atkinson Candy President Eric Atkinson, who runs the business with his father, two sisters and 280 employees. "You see weaknesses and you see vulnerabilities and things you wouldn't be experiencing

The Lufkin candy maker, with annual sales of nearly $100 million, uses between 30,000 and 40,000 pounds of sugar a day to produce peanut brittle and peppermint sticks. Prices for the sweetener have soared 30 percent during the last year, said Atkinson. In some cases, the company has had difficulty getting enough sugar from domestic suppliers.

Trying to preserve market share, Atkinson said the company has passed only half the sugar price increase along to customers. Sugar costs have boosted the price of its signature product, a 3 1/2 pound peppermint stick the company touts as the world's largest, to $5.25, up 25 percent from 2005.

Atkinson and other candy makers have criticized the federal support loans, tariff-rate quotas and domestic supply restrictions that prop up U.S. sugar prices to protect domestic producers. Critics complain that the sugar program hurts companies by restricting access to less expensive, foreign-grown sugar.

The Commerce Department released a study in February showing that the confectionary industry lost nearly three jobs between 1997 and 2002 for each sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high U.S. sugar prices. [emphasis mine]

The report said chocolate, candy, breakfast cereal and other sugar users paid 23.5 cents for a pound of refined sugar in 2004, more than twice the world price of 10.9 cents. This placed U.S. companies "at a competitive disadvantage to foreign competitors" and lead many to move their operations to Canada or Mexico.

Atkinson said the company is looking again at moving. . . .