The story of Jelly Belly’s sweet success

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With richly tanned skin and a giant smile, Danny Van Haute leans from the window of his jelly bean-emblazoned team car. As he creeps past the start line under the Tour of California gantry, the longtime team director flings sample bags of jelly beans to flocks of kids on the roadside with a skillful flick of the wrist — just far enough not to pull the kids into the road.

Van Haute will continue to perfect his bag toss in 2016, his 17th with the Jelly Belly Pro Cycling Team, which has never known another director. In fact, in an era when pro teams seem stable if they can hold onto a title sponsor for three consecutive seasons, the Jelly Belly Candy Company recently renewed its title sponsorship through 2017, which will take the relationship to at least 18 years.

“This kind of stability allows the program to contract riders with a degree of certainty,” Van Haute says. “Domestic cycling rarely has an organization with this level of dependability.”

4– National titles won by Jelly Belly riders (two Mexican titles by Luis Lemus; one Canadian title by Will Routley; one American title by Freddie Rodriguez)

Since the team’s founding, Jelly Belly riders have notched four national road championships (one U.S., two Mexican, and one Canadian) and, by Van Haute and other team officials’ estimates, around 250 other wins and 400 podium appearances. The 2014 season was arguably one of its best, with Serghei Tvetcov finishing third at the USA Pro Challenge — the team’s first ever podium at a UCI America’s Tour race. Australian Lachlan Morton went on to win the Tour of Utah in 2016, which Van Haute said was the team’s biggest win ever.

24.7– Average age of the 10-man roster in 2016

Among the riders to have pulled on the jelly bean kit are Christian Vande Velde, Tyler Farrar (Dimension Data), Kiel Reijnen (Trek – Segafredo), four-time U.S. national champion Freddie Rodriguez, Vuelta stage winner Jason McCartney, former Team Sky pro Danny Pate, and Cannondale rider (and VeloNews columnist) Phil Gaimon.

“When I started at Jelly Belly, I was unproven, young, overly enthusiastic, and hungry,” Reijnen says. “Danny saw something in me — enough to catch his attention anyway — and after two months of stagiaire riding at the end of 2008, I had my first pro contract. Jelly Belly took that risk on me when no one else would, and that kept my dream alive. My time there will always be remembered as some of the most challenging and rewarding moments of my career.”

Why has a 118-year-old family-owned candy company …

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