Bakery marks milestone with tribute to MoonPie

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- Chattanooga Bakery is trying to stir up some sweet memories of its only product, the MoonPie.

As part of its 100th anniversary Friday, the bakery is sponsoring a contest asking people to share memories, stories or photographs about the more than 8 billion MoonPies that have been sold. The winner gets a family trip to Chattanooga and a tour of the bakery.

The MoonPie -- a confection of marshmallow-stuffed graham cookies, coated with chocolate, banana or vanilla -- was created to appeal to the Southern sweet tooth but has been sold nationally since the 1950s. The anniversary comes on the heels of record sales of $20 million last year.

"We thrive during a downturn," said Sam Campbell IV, president of the family-owned bakery. "We're kind of a back-to-basics thing. People try to get back to things they are comfortable with when times are tough."

Moonpie memories

Company spokesman Tory Johnston traced the MoonPie's origins to a bakery salesman's conversation in 1917, when a Kentucky coal miner held out his hands and framed the rising moon to explain the kind of big snack food the workers wanted.

In the decades that followed, a nickel version of the MoonPie grew into a corner-store favorite among folks who washed it down with a 20-ounce, 5-cent Royal Crown Cola.

For decades, MoonPies have been tossed at Mardi Gras parades and mentioned in movies and popular music -- from country artists Lonzo and Oscar in their 1951 "Give Me an RC Cola and a MoonPie" to Alabama's "When It All Goes South" in 2001.

They are even honored at a festival. In Bell Buckle, a community of 400 residents about 50 miles south of Nashville, the eighth annual RC Cola and MoonPie Festival attracted about 20,000 revelers in June.

At the plant in an industrial section of Chattanooga, about 150 employees, many wearing hair nets, work around shiny conveyors that move dough into a 300-foot-long oven and then to packaging machines and a shipping area. It takes 18 minutes to make one MoonPie, and the "marshmallow sandwiches" have a shelf life of about four months.

Longtime employee Ethel Hardwick, 66, said working around the smell of cookie dough all day has diminished her appetite for the treat.

"I might eat one every blue moon," she said.

In recent years, the company has branched out with sales of MoonPie memorabilia -- including clothing, toy trucks, golf accessories and fishing lures -- available through the corporate Web site and at some Cracker Barrel restaurants.

"People already recognize us," Campbell said.