Bedford Candies was founded in 1929 by George B. Sotirokos in the heart of Historic Bedford, Pennsylvania. The store was owned and operated by three generations of the Sotirokos family. Steve Sotirokos was the third generation, and successfully ran the business from 1979 to 2010. Steve has since retired from the candy business, and has left the store in the hands of long-time employee Tammy Wiley. Tammy strives for the same excellence that the store has achieved for over 80 years and continues to create high quality chocolates that cannot be found anywhere else.

Bedford Candies Gourmet Popcorn was born from Adam Wiley’s senior project in 2013. Adam is always thinking of future business endeavors, and he believed that gourmet popcorn would be a great addition to his mother’s candy store.

Tammy, who happens to also be Adam's mother, told him to do the research required to start the business. With that research, Adam crafted a business plan that could be presented to Tammy's business partners for their opinions on starting the new product line.

The rest has been history. Bedford Candies debuted the new product line in July of 2013, and the gourmet popcorn quickly became incredibly popular in the surrounding areas.  Due to the increasing popularity of our products, the decision was made to open a kiosk in  the Logan Valley Mall for Christmas 2015.  After several very successful months of operation at the Mall, Tammy and Adam announced the opening of a permanent second location in the Pleasant Valley Shopping Center.  This 3,000 square foot storefront allowed Bedford Candies product to be more accessible for our Blair County customers.

Bedford Candies was beginning to outgrow our manufacturing space in our Bedford store and in 2017, it was time to build a new Headquarters and Distribution Center.  We broke ground on October 20, 2017 on a new 10,000 square foot facility that would house all of our chocolate and popcorn manufacturing.  In August 2018, the new facility was opened and is now operational.  The addition of the Headquarters and Distribution Center has allowed for increased efficiency and will allow for continued growth.

Although a lot has changed for Bedford Candies over the last few years, the classic family recipes and high quality, handmade products remain the same.