Margaret McEntire *

Margaret McEntire calls herself “living proof that a housewife can do anything if she puts her mind to it.”

The company that the mother of six founded 16 years ago, Candy Bouquet International Inc., now has more than 700 franchisees in 44 countries. While the home office in Little Rock em-ploys only 37 and its revenue is a trade secret, the franchised stores employ about 5,500 people worldwide and the family of stores has total revenue of more than $60 million.

The business McEntire runs today is a far cry from that first store that she and a partner opened in Houston in 1989.

“I had not seen this idea anywhere,” she said, “except you could go to a florist and see an arrangement that also had a box of chocolate in the front. Florists have been trying to combine candy and flowers for years.”

The little store “went over like gangbusters,” McEntire said, but her partner became ill, so she regrouped and reopened in 90 SF in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock in 1992. In early 1994, the reincorporated business began selling franchises.

The company headquarters is now at 423 E. Third St. in downtown Little Rock. McEntire also owns Stone Brook Fudge in Mountain View and Big Rock Wire Co. in Little Rock, which provide some of the raw materials that go into the candy gift bouquets that are the company’s stock in trade.

“As I’ve grown through the years, I’m doing more and more of that kind of thing: buying auxiliary companies to cut out the middleman,” she said.

She imports boxes and other materials, mainly from China, and candies from Canada, Belgium and other countries.

McEntire is putting to use the one college course in economics that she took to appease her father, who had a PhD in economics. And she is living by a tried-and-true philosophy: “Winners never quit, quitters never win.”

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