 Its subsidiary Strauss Coffee is a leading coffee company in Eastern Europe and Brazil.Eliyahu Fromenchenko (also spelled Fromchenko), a Russian Jew, with his family launched a candy business in 1918 after preparing confections in his home kitchen.Fleeing the economic and political chaos that followed the rise of Communism in the Soviet Union, he moved to Latvia and in 1924 merged into Laima in Riga.