Stuckey’s CEO talks about becoming the ‘comeback brand’

Taking three lessons she learned by digging through boxes of her grandfather’s documents, Stephanie Stuckey not only brought a family business back into the family, she turned an in-debt business into a profitable one.

Stuckey shared those lessons and her experience as the “unexpected” CEO of Stuckey’s during a quarterly breakfast hosted by the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith’s Family Enterprise Center Thursday morning (June 29).

Founded in 1937 by Stuckey’s grandfather, W.S. Stuckey Sr. in Eastman, Ga., Stuckey’s became synonymous with road trip stops where you could fill up with gas, grab snacks, including the famous Stuckey’s Pecan Log Roll, and often find fun souvenirs. Stuckey’s was also the brand name on pecan snacks that were sold in more than 350 stores nationwide at its peak in the 1970s.

W.S. Stuckey sold the business in retirement in the mid-60s, and under a series of corporate owners, sales languished, and the brand faced rapid decline. Of the original 368 stores, 13 still exist.

“I don’t have anything against family businesses selling to corporate owners,” Stuckey said. “But sometimes it doesn’t work. It didn’t work for our stores.”

Stephanie Stuckey purchased the company in November 2019, returning her family business to its roots and its values, the press material noted. But the purchase wasn’t something the family encouraged. Stuckey, the fifth of seven grandchildren, said she was the last in the family to be approached when investors were looking to sell. She also said two of the three financial advisors consulted told her to not buy the brand and her father questioned why the environmental lawyer thought she could run a business.

Stuckey was undeterred.

“I saw what wasn’t on the balance sheet, which was the brand. I bought it for that, but also because I loved my grandfather,” Stuckey said. “Family businesses get this like no one else. I didn’t want my grandfather’s legacy to be a bunch of shuttered stores on the highway.”

When Stuckey took over, the company was no longer making its own pecan snacks the way her grandfather had done when it started. It had a rented warehouse that held about 30,000 fidget spinners and cases of Brittney Spears t-shirts among items, but all products were outsourced.

“We were sourcing our pecans from Mexico. They didn’t taste like my grandmother’s. Our snacks didn’t taste like my grandmother’s,” she said.

But at the start of her journey, Stuckey got an amazing gift – W.S. Stuckey’s papers. In those six boxes were letters, correspondence, interviews, photos, employee evaluations and more.

“Every night after I was trying to find out what to do with 30,000 fidget spinners and make it profitable, I would read his papers. That was my MBA, my education to revive a family business,” Stuckey said.

That education included the following three invaluable lessons
• Building a business is about building community.
• Embrace change. Don’t just accept it.
• Have a sense of purpose.

“A company that has a vision that you live when it is really, really hard to live that – that is purpose, and it will live on … years after your death,” Stuckey said.

In the years since Stuckey brought the Stuckey’s brand back to a family-owned business, the company acquired a pecan snack and candy plant in Wrens, Ga., to produce Stuckey’s branded snacks and sweets – including the iconic pecan log roll – and the snacks are now sold in nearly 5,000 retail stores nationwide. The company also now has more than 65 licensed locations.

But the road wasn’t easy. Stuckey said she also had her hit-the-bottom moments when she wondered what she was doing and how she could possibly make the company and herself and family survive.

“Sometimes we don’t know the inner resolve or the strength we have in us. It’s those really low moments when you realize you have it,” she said. “If you suddenly find yourself in a family business and don’t know what to do, become the unexpected CEO.”

Stuckey said she knew how to build a team and how to stand up and argue for unpopular causes. She used that. She and her partners worked to find a way to keep their loyal customer base and find new customers in younger generations.

“Now, we’re the comeback brand,” she said.

And she has vision for the future, getting Stuckey’s products in more stores and being recognized as the top manufacturer of pecan snacks.

“I want Stuckey’s to be the go to brand for pecan products,” she said.