Courtesy of Discovery+
The Coriscana-based Collin Street Bakery is one of the world's largest fruitcake distributors, making around $30 million per year from sales around the world.
If you know, you know — the sweet, chewy, pecan-laden sensation that is Collin Street Bakery's famous fruitcake, made in the little town of Corsicana and shipped around the world during Christmastime. For locals, Collin Street Bakery makes for a fun day trip to pick up sandwiches, cookies, and few tins of the shop's claim to fame, contributing to the 125-year-old empire that estimates $30 million in sales per year.
In 2013, however, a scandal was cooking up right under bakery workers' noses — one that eventually inspired a documentary that'll begin streaming Wednesday on Discovery+.
"Fruitcake Fraud" tells the story of Collin Street Bakery's infamous embezzlement case involving Sandy Jenkins, the accountant who stole nearly $17 million from the company and squandered it on Rolex watches, vacations, and a hoard of other lavish luxuries. For years, Jenkins' actions went unbeknownst to the bakery until a newly hired accountant began discovering the truth. Jenkins was eventually sentenced to prison, where he died in 2019.
The documentary features interviews with various players in the case, from Collin Street Bakery president and CEO Bob McNutt to Jenkins' attorney, Brett Stalcup, and FBI agent Christine Edson.
Outside the news, Collin Street Bakery's story has been generally untold on screen until this year. Red Sanders, president of Fort Worth-based film company Red Productions, had been working on a dramatized adaptation of the incident — which originally had Will Ferrell starring as Jenkins and Laura Dern as his wife, Kay — before COVID-19 set back the project. That's when Celia Aniskovich, director and executive producer behind the documentary, reached out, and Sanders hopped on board as fellow executive producer. (Sanders says the "Fruitcake" film is still a go, by the way, just delayed and set to ramp up again next year.)
On the eve of the film's premiere, Aniskovich and Sanders shared what they found most intriguing about Collin Street Bakery's story — and the holiday message that transcends the small-town scandal.
Read the interview here.