Bitter Creek Candle Supply

About Us....
42212 County Hwy. E ~ Ashland, WI. 54806

Company History.....

Rich Hansen, first became interested in candlemaking as a hobby. Searching the internet for sources of instructions and information, he found a site called The Candle Cauldron™, where he learned all about the art of candlemaking. He caught on to the craft very quickly, but soon realized that there were very few good sources for supplies at the time, and that those available were limited in their selection and somewhat expensive. The industry definitely needed a good honest & reputable supplier. So he decided he would invest in buying his supplies in bulk so he could save money in the long run by selling what he didn't use himself to other candlemakers who wanted to save some money.

In 1998 he enlisted the help of Doneen St.John, creator of The Candle Cauldron™, as his webmaster, and had a website created for what began as just a part-time side business. As more & more candlemakers became aware of the selection of high quality supplies he was offering to others at such a great savings, interest grew rapidly, and before he knew it, Bitter Creek Candle Supply was born! This soon became a full time business for both of us.

Since then, our company has grown from only a couple of part time employees to an average of around 30 - 40 full time employees! Due to a lot of hard work and dedication, we have quadrupled in size and have become one of the largest as well as the best candle suppliers online today! In July of 1999, the company moved to a new building in Ashland Wisconsin, and after shortly out growing it, added on a new 6,000 square foot warehouse facility. Only a few months later in 2000 we outgrew our facilities again, and built another 8,000 square foot warehouse! Throughout that year we had many new expansions including building new larger areas for our packing & re-packaging departments, and moving & remodeling our fragrance department to make room for our ever growing line. During 2001, we expanded and remodeled our back office area, and in 2002 we finished building our third 14,000 square foot warehouse addition! In 2003 we built yet another 4,000 square foot building, for a total of approximately 37,000 square feet! We moved our administrative offices to a building next door and have converted our old front office to a showroom where customers can come see some of our products on display, including a a sample sniffing station that will include all of the fragrances from both BC North and BC South! As of January 2003 we bought out another supplier and launched Bitter Creek South in Houston Texas, which we have since moved to a new 20,000 square foot warehouse! There is also a showroom at the new BC South building which includes sniffing samples of both fragrance lines, glassware, and other products too! In early 2006 we purchased Wick Your Wax candle making supplies and added much of their line of fragrances at BC North, and in March 2006 we bought out another supplier, Bubbles n' Lights, and we now carry their line of fragrances at BC North.

At Bitter Creek, The Low Price Leader, having low prices doesn't mean low quality! We are able to offer the best quality products at such great prices because of our bulk buying power. We sample and test products from all over the country and all over the world to find you the best! And being candlemakers ourselves, we have the experience to know what you want! Our goal is to offer our customers the highest quality products on the market, the best selection anywhere, and the highest level of customer service & satisfaction possible. Customers are more than just numbers to us, and we value your business whether you spend ten dollars or a thousand dollars. We believe in honesty and professionalism, not misleading customers or knocking the competition in order to get business! We believe in being different than the rest, and we enjoy bringing you the most unique and hard to find products you don't find elsewhere. We are in a state of constant improvement, always "finding new ways to serve you better".

When you buy from BC, you can feel secure in knowing that you're buying from a dependable and reputable company, not a fly-by-night business that might not be around tomorrow! We are incorporated, listed with Dun & Bradstreet, and are members of the Better Business Bureau and the National Candle Association (NCA). Our customer base has grown to well over 50,000 people in the U.S., Canada and at many other countries around the world. We carry over 3,000 different products, over 500 fragrances, and we ship hundreds of orders every day! We've been around longer than most, and you can count on us to be here for you in the future!

We have become a staple in the candlemaking community and have helped many small businesses grow & succeed in the industry. We are proud members of the IGCA and we donate supplies for their yearly conventions as well as to several other candle & soapmaking groups and gatherings around the country. We also dedicate much of our personal time to helping candlemakers through building & maintaining several educational non-profit websites, such as LeadFreeCandles.Org, and GelCandlemaking.Com. I (Doneen) truly enjoy creating and providing these free resources to candlemakers, and helping them succeed and promoting safety is very important to me. Rich and I have made this not just a business, but a way of life! We pride ourselves on our dedication to the candle industry, and we are confident that our customers make a good decision by using our company. We look forward to becoming your one stop supply source and to being of service to you for many years to come!

Read our story in the Ashland Daily Press!

Come on in and meet the staff of Bitter Creek....

Order Desk - These are the friendly folks who take your orders and enter them into the computer. They type in many online orders and take hundreds of calls each day, and will always try their best to help with any questions they can answer. Please remember, the order clerks cannot answer technical questions or give candlemaking advice, please refer to our tech support department for those questions.	LaDonna, Becca & Donna
Technical Support - These are the people who are qualified to give you candlemaking advice, tips and help with tech support on the products that we carry. Most answers can be found right on our website, so please check there first. If you can't find it there, we'll be happy to help as best we can! We do receive hundreds of e-mails and calls, so if you don't catch us in the office or get a reply immediately, please be patient and we will do our best to get back to you as soon as we can! Your best bet for fast help is to catch someone live on the website through our Live Help chat!	Flicker
Shipping & Tracking Department - This is the person who ships all of our packages, and can help you with tracking, tracing a lost order, and placing UPS or Fedex claims. This person can also look up an order by last name or order number and tell you if it has been shipped or is still in processing.	Donna
Returns Department - This is who you need to contact if there is ever a problem with an order you've received. If any items are missing, incorrect or damaged, call and report it to them and they will get the problem solved. They handle all returns and store credits.	LaDonna
Order & Stock Status - This person notifies you if any items are out of stock on your order, and although we do not take backorders, they will gladly contact you when an item comes back into stock so you can place a new order.	LaDonna
Payment Processing - These people process all credit cards, PayPal payments, electronic checks and Money Orders. If there is ever a problem with your account or any questions regarding payment methods, this who you need to contact.	Becca
Operations & Personnel Manager - This person handles our personnel department, including reviewing applicants, keeping employee records & doing evaluations. They also supervise all departments and impliment systems of keeping things running smoothly and efficiently. They also do our purchasing & receiving.	Amber
Order Processing - This is the one who checks over the final invoice, calculates the shipping and processes the finished invoices so they can be paid and shipped.	Becca
Management - These people can handle any problems that need to be resolved, or special requests for products, etc. It's our job to make the company run as smoothly as possible for our customers as well as our staff, so we welcome any comments, suggestions, complaints or compliments!	Rich - President & CEO Doneen - Vice President & General Manager Amber - Operations & Personnel Manager Ladonna - Office Supervisor Marcel - Warehouse Supervisor Alice - Picking Supervisor Bonnie - Fragrance Room Supervisor Barb - Inventory Supervisor Pete - Packing Supervisor
Webmaster - This person designs, creates and maintains our vast website! If you experience any problems with the site, or notice anything that may need correcting, please bring it to their attention! They also bring you our e-mail newsletter each month.	Doneen
Purchasing - These are the people who scour the world to find you the widest selection of unique high quality products available! We spend many hours each week continually shopping new sources and testing hundreds of samples to find the best fragrances, candle and soap products on the market!	Rich, Doneen & Amber
Accounting - This is the person who keeps up with paying the bills, payroll, etc.	Jill
Administrative Assistant - This is who helps Rich & Doneen in the executive office with general office duties and special projects.	Erica
Packaging & Pouring - These people spend their days bottling hundreds of pounds & thousands of ounces of fragrance oils, as well as packaging up all of our other products, like additives, wicks, dyes, labels, etc. They use the most accurate industrial scales to weigh our products and take great care to ensure you are getting what you ordered!	Bonnie, Joan, Cheryl & Joe
Warehouse - These are the people who package our wax slabs & candle gel, and organize our bulk products in our 2 warehouse facilities. They work hard unloading truckloads of pallets, drums, boxes and buckets with forklifts and also loading your packages onto the dock for the UPS & Fedex trucks. We stock over 34,000 square feet of supplies for your needs!	Marcel, Cy, Joe, Bob & Richard
Maintenance - This is the person who fixes & builds everything, maintains our buildings & vehicles. Also plows snow & mows the lawn & keeps thngs looking nice!	Moto & Pete
Inventory - These are the people who keep track of our hundreds of products and keep a current count to let us know what is low and what needs to be ordered so we can do our best to keep everything in stock at all times!	Barb & Erin
Picking & Packing - These are the people who pack your orders to be shipped out. They work in teams, one person picking items off the shelves and another double checking the items as they are packed for shipment. They package & ship hundreds of orders each day, and take great care to pack them as carefully and completely as possible! During our busy season, we have packing crews working both days and sometimes evenings and even Saturdays to get your orders out as fast as possible!	Alice, Lisa, Pete, Leon, Mabel, Roxanne & Al

Nice to meet you! Come see us again soon :)
Interested in joining our team? Click here for employment opportunities with our company!
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www.candlesupply.com / www.candlemaking.net / www.bittercreek.net / www.soapsupply.com
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