The Bosco Bar

Remember the Bosco magic in your milk and on your ice cream? Some of us remember when it was called theMilk Amplifier:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-aCP3SVu-Q.   Others know it as Seinfeld character George Constanza’s secret ATM password.  Betcha most of you didn’t know it came from New Jersey!

Bosco, the classic chocolate syrup, was created in 1928 by a Camden, New Jersey, physician and is now manufactured in Towaco for distribution worldwide. The company has now added a chocolate bar to the brand.

Steve Sanders is president of Sea Breeze (www.seabreezesyrups.com),  the family-owned company that has held the Bosco brand since the 1980′s. 

Bosco ingredients are mixed and channeled from 3,000-gallon tanks to machines which pump the prescribed amounts of product into plastic chocolate syrup bottles, approved by a quality-control team led by Frank Maranino.  Bottles then move onto a conveyor belt, are capped, labeled and boxed.

The new Bosco Milk Chocolate Bar is  3.5 ounces and 6 inches in length, and retails for $2.  It is formulated to taste like the chocolate syrup and is available on Candy.com.   

Barnet Sanders, Steve’s grandfather, founded Sea Breeze in 1925 originally as a seltzer water distributor and began adding flavored syrups to the mix of products to be sold. 

Contrary to Bosco, (sold in plastic bottles), Sea Breeze distributes its sodas, iced teas and fruit drinks in boxes which are then sold on tap by its customers, and is proud to refer to his company as ‘the granddaddy of green’, as it uses no bottles or cans and only minimal packaging. 

Try the new Bosco bar and you are supporting a legacy and a Jersey family business. Plus it makes you feel better. Because it’s Bosco.       

Beverly Beveridge is a Staff Writer for NJMyWay, Monmouth County Regional Editor/Greater New York Area Editor f or Jersey Bites and a Member of the Jersey Shore Visitors Center and Convention Bureau.