fine foods industry manufacturing founded 1946 headquarters 2404 port street new orleans louisiana key people alan elmer sr. president 1 products snack food website elmer s quality snacks elmer s fine foods or just elmer s is a snack food company based in new orleans louisiana . started in 1946 elmer s makes snack products including its popular cheewees and mardi gras cheese curls sold in various southeastern states . until their chocolate business was sold they also specialized in the production of seasonal candies such as heavenly hash and gold bricks that are popular in the gulf coast states . their manufacturing plant and offices are located in the ninth ward a part of new orleans that was heavily flooded by hurricane katrina . contents 1 history 2 products 5 3 see also 4 references history edit elmer candy company began in 1855 as miller candy company launched by christopher miller . 2 miller transferred the company to his son in law augustus elmer who changed the name to miller elmer candy . elmer s five sons joined the business and it became elmer candy corporation around 1914 . 2 3 during the great depression the elmer brothers developed a cornmeal based cheese curl snack . 2 in 1939 the sales manager for elmer s morel m. elmer sr. held a contest in new orleans to name the famous cheese curls and the winning entry was cheewees . in 1946 elmer s fine foods was formed to market their new cheese curl product . 4 in 1963 the five sons of augustus elmer sold the elmer candy corporation . by doing so they forfeited the trademark names of the products and elmer s fine foods lost the ability to use the name cheewees . for the next 30 years the company marketed their famous cheese curls using the names chee t and chee z snax . 2 in the 1980s brothers alan paul and stephen elmer joined the business and began modernizing the company adding products and increasing sales . 2 as president of elmer s fine foods alan wanted to use his grandfather s trademarked cheewees name . in 1993 elmer s fine foods reacquired the naming rights from the elmer candy corporation and began to once again sell cheewees . 2 following devastation from hurricane katrina in 2005 elmer s fine foods was closed for 14 months while its infrastructure was rebuilt . the company re opened in january 2007 and launched its company web site . 2 brothers alan stephen and paul are the fifth generation of the elmer family to be in the food business in new orleans . cheewees are sold throughout mississippi and louisiana and sales have expanded to national and international markets . 2 products 5 edit cheewees are produced in five flavors original cheese bar b que hot n spicy green onion and jalape o . elmer s popcorn is packaged ready to eat in caramel and cheese flavors . elmer s jumbo peanuts are dry roasted and packaged in shell . elmer s cheewees t shirts see also edit cheese puffs elmer s fine foods was involved in their development . references edit megan braden perry . 2013 . alan elmer sr. president of elmer s fine foods inc. . retrieved 2015 04 01 . a b c d e f g h jamey landry . 2014 . elmer s cheewees the big cheese of new orleans . inside new orleans vol . 1 no. 1 94 96 98 99 . retrieved 2015 04 01 . mark miester and michael democker . 2004 . robert nelson elmer candy . tulanian tulane university new orleans louisiana retrieved 2015 04 01 . history of elmer s cheewees retrieved 2015 04 01 . elmer s quality snacks product index retrieved 2015 04 01 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title elmer % 27s fine foods & oldid 743576612 categories food and drink companies of the united statessnack food manufacturers of the united statescompanies based in new orleansfood and drink companies established in 19461946 establishments in louisiana navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages espa ol edit links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 07 37 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view