Vermont Teddy

The Vermont Teddy Bear Company

happens to be one of the largest manufacturers and sellers of teddy bears through mail order and on the internet. The teddy bears are handcrafted and the company makes over 500,000 each year. The company used to be traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange using the ticker symbol BEAR. It has since been taken over to private stock by The Mustang Group, which is a private equity firm which is based in Boston. This private firm took over the stock on September 30, 2005.

The Vermont Teddy Bear Company was founded in 1981 by a man named John Sortino. John sold handcrafted teddy bears in a flea market in Burlington, Vermont. He got the idea of packaging them and selling them through the mail after a customer asked him to mail a bear to her home. The package sent through the mail consisted of a bear put in a box with an air hole, and stuffed with other goodies, and it was called a “Bear Gram”.

The company moved to Vermont’s Champlain Valley in 1995. Today the company has two factories. One of them is in Shelburne and the other is in Newport. The one in Shelburne also holds family oriented events such as concerts and the annual Vermont Mozart Festival. It is also a tourist attraction. The company also has 2 retail stores, one in Shelbourne and the other between Waterbury and Stowe. The Vermont Teddy Bear Company bought the Calyx & Corolla company which was a flower company in Vero Beach, Florida. This was strange because one of the Teddy Bear Company’s marketing slogans was ”a creative alternative to sending flowers”.

In 2005, the company opened a sister company called, Gift Bag Boutique. The company sold purses with many make-up accessories. They also started the PajamaGram, which sells pajamas, and the TastyGram, which sells gourmet food gifts. This gives a total of five companies under the Vermont Teddy Bear Company group.

In 2005, the company distributed a Teddy bear for Valentine’s Day which was dressed all in white straight jacket with a red heart embroidered on it. A tag on the bear says, “Commitment Papers”, Can’t Eat, Can’t Sleep, My Heart’s racing. Diagnosis - Crazy For You. This bear caused quite a controversy and mental health groups all over the United States asked for the bear to be removed from the market. Some groups called for a boycott of the company. They claimed that the bear was a hurtful thing in that it made light of the suffering caused by the severe mental illness. The company responded by saying they did not mean to offend anyone and that the phrase, “Im Crazy About You” was the idea they were trying to get across to the public.