Bringing Heart to the Holidays with creative werks
February 2026
Have you ever made a mad dash to the convenience store on February 14th and grabbed a heart-shaped box of candy? Or stocked up on candy-filled canes for your children’s Christmas stockings? If the answer is yes, then you have probably sampled the creative work of creative werks, an Elk Grove Village-based contract packaging, manufacturing and design company.
From Packaging to Powerhouse
Walk through Target, Costco or your local grocery during the holidays, and you’ll see aisle after aisle of seasonal confections, an industry that keeps growing every year. That growth propelled creative werks to become the industry leader it is today.
Twenty-five years ago they began as a packaging and design firm. As holiday items grew in popularity, manufacturers found producing them in-house wasn’t cost-effective. That’s when creative werks shifted their focus to contract packaging and manufacturing of these holiday items, helping clients focus on their core products. Those filled plastic candy canes you see for the holidays?
They produce 90% of those tubes and toppers on the market.
Heart Work
As creative werks’ VP of Sales and Marketing Billy Schroeder puts it, “We help consumers celebrate the holidays.” And that is putting it mildly. From Christmas to Easter to Valentine’s Day, creative werks helps companies meet the growing demand for seasonal items in interesting and creative ways.
Take Valentine’s Day, for instance. What was once a holiday for lovers has evolved into a way to celebrate our kids, their classmates, and our friends. The heart-shaped board box filled with candy for your wife? creative werks manufactures that. Plastic hearts filled with your kid’s favorite sweet treat? They package and manufacture those too. Valentine confections for classroom exchanges? That’s all from the unique design minds at creative werks.
Their ideation team is continually coming up with new ways to celebrate the holidays. But a great idea also has to work for their customer’s bottom line.
Cane Beyond Candy
creative werks’ goal is to help brands excel in all avenues, so that means thinking outside the “traditional confections” box. Meat sticks in a cane. Pickles. Hot sauce. These are just some of the new innovations from the company’s creative minds and there is more on the horizon.
With a recent expansion in Elk Grove Village, creative werks has its eye on growth and how to positively impact their staff and broader community, while helping clients innovate and prosper – and of course, to keep coming up with creative ways to fill those popular plastic tubes!
For more information, visit creative werks' website at https://www.creative-werks.com/