Chocolate companies

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Chocolate companies

Answer 1

Tangerine Confectionery

Tangerine Confectionery Limited

Tangerine Confectionery is a British confectionery company with its headquarters in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. It has grown, since 2006, through acquisitions into one of the largest independent confectionery companies in Europe and the fourth largest sweet maker in the United Kingdom.

In January 2006, Tom's Confectionery changed its name to Tangerine Confectionery and altered its branding following the purchase of the company by a new management team from Tom's Gruppen of Denmark. The UK arm of Tom's had been created through the acquisition of three traditional confectionery companies, Taveners, Daintee and Parrs, over a ten-year period, between 1992 and 2001.

Originally the company had been mainly an own-label supplier in England. The company acquired the Taveners, Dainty and Parrs businesses from Toms of Denmark later in January 2006. In April it was voted the best own-label confectionery supplier in the UK by The Grocer magazine. In August, the company acquired the confectionery arm of Blackpool-based Burton's Foods and so increase turnover of the company to £60m, making it the largest independent confectionery company in the UK.

In January 2008, the company purchased Yorkshire based Monkhill Confectionery from Cadbury plc in a £58 million deal, with factories in Cleckheaton, Pontefract and York as well as a distribution centre in Holmewood, North East Derbyshire. The purchase included the Barratts, Sharps of York, Jameson's, Trebor Basset Mints, Butterkist and Pascall lines. Two months later Tangerine claimed there were no plans to close its York factory, despite ordering workers to stay at home in Easter week.

Two months later, staff in Blackpool voted in favour of industrial action after turning down a 2.5% pay offer.

In April 2009 the company was ranked 23rd in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Profit Track 100, published by The Sunday Times, and was the highest North West entry in the table, which lists the 100 private UK's companies with the fastest growing profits. In August it received a quality Halal Seal of Approval, from the Halal Food Authority, for 150 products within its Barratt, MOJO, Princess and Taveners Proper Sweets ranges

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Answer 2

Taza Chocolate

Taza Chocolate is a Mexican-inspired stoneground, organic chocolate manufacturer based in Somerville, MA, USA. The factory was founded by Alex Whitmore in 2005 and is home to over 40 different products that can be found in 2,800 retail stores across the country.

Alex Whitmore founded Taza Chocolate in 2005 after a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico where he first encountered stone ground chocolate. He learned from a molinero in Oaxaca authentic Mexican techniques, such as how to grow cacao beans and how to hand-carve granite millstones. The first batch of Taza Chocolate was created in Whitmore’s kitchen, using simple and traditional Mexican processes with stone mills.

After building out a factory space in Somerville, Massachusetts in 2006, Whitmore acquired a mix of traditional and vintage machinery, including stone mills from Oaxaca, an Italian winnower from Dominican Republic, and a Barth Sirocco roaster from Italy. The cacao beans were initially bought from brokers, but Whitmore later traveled through Central and South America and the Caribbean in search of farmers who could work directly with him. Whitmore and his co-founder and wife, Kathleen Fulton, have maintained a Direct Trade relationship with every cacao grower from where they source the cacao beans.

Taza Chocolate is sold across the United States and in certain countries abroad.

Taza Chocolate uses Certified USDA Organic, non-GMO cacao that grow directly from the trunk and branches of cacao tree. These are located in the ‘Cocoa Belt,’ a range of land 20 degrees north and south of the equator. Most of this cacao comes from the Dominican Republic, Belize, and Bolivia. During the harvest, farmers cut the pods from the tree and collect them in pules where they are cracked open and the beans and fruit removed. After being removed from the forest, cacao beans go through a fermentation process. The mass of beans and fruit is packed in large wooden boxes arranged in three levels and last over six to seven days to ferment. The beans start fermenting on the top level, and after two days, the contents are agitated and transferred to the second level. The process finishes when the cacao reaches the ground level, or when acidity and residual sugars have reached desired levels. After being fermented, the beans go through a process of drying that takes up to eight days. Within this process, the beans are spread out to dry on large wooden decks, which helps excess moisture and undesired acids evaporate. Once dry, the beans are then packed into sacks and shipped to the Taza Chocolate factory.

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Answer 3

Teuscher

Teuscher is a chocolatier headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

Teuscher's main store is on Zurich's famed Bahnhofstrasse. The flagship store is a few blocks away in Zurich's old city centre (Storchengasse 9) in a shop built in 1647.

Founded in 1932 by Dolf Teuscher, Sr., Teuscher is now run by Dolf Teuscher, Jr. The company's CFO is Rafael Rubio, Dolf, Jr.'s nephew.

In addition to its stores in Zurich, the company has outlets in Geneva, Berlin, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Palo Alto, Beverly Hills, Newport Beach (California), Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong, Doha, Shanghai, Baku (Azerbaijan), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Abu Dhabi and Bangkok (Thailand). The Swiss confectioner hand manufactures over 200 varieties of confections and pastries. Its signature confections are Champagne Truffles, the first of its kind. They are made with Dom Perignon champagne, butter cream, and surrounded by dark cream ganache made from 66% dark base chocolate. Each is enrobed in milk chocolate and dusted with confectioner's sugar or dark chocolate and dusted with bracingly dry unsweetened cocoa powder.

As Swiss confectioners generally do not distinguish themselves from patisseries, the Teuscher brand also creates a wide range of pastries and cookies. Controversially, the Zurich-based company bakes the famous cookies of Basel, Zurich's main rival city, the Basler Leckerli, which are somewhat similar to gingerbread cookies.

Aside from a wide-ranging selection of truffles, pralines, marzipan and other items, Teuscher also manufactures dark chocolate ranging from 55% to 99% in increments of 11%.

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Answer 4

Theo Chocolate

Theo Chocolate is a bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Seattle, Washington. Established in 2006, it is the first organic, fair trade-certified bean-to-bar chocolate maker in the United States.

Theo has sourced beans from the Congo, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Madagascar, Peru, and Venezuela. An equatorial crop, cocoa in the United States grows only in Hawaii.

The business was established in 2006 by Joe Whinney and Debra Music in the Fremont, Seattle neighborhood. The business is located in a former brewery building at 3400 Phinney Avenue.

Joe Whinney first pioneered the supply of organic cocoa beans into the United States in 1994. Traveling and working in the tropics of Central America and Africa, he fell in love with the land and the people farming there. He recognized an injustice in the way that both were being exploited and wanted to do something to make a difference.

Over the next decade, Joe worked tirelessly to champion organic cocoa beans in the U.S. and promote Fair Trade practices for the people farming those beans. He built lasting relationships and deep trust with farmer groups—all the while focused on the goal of someday making chocolate himself and sharing his passion with the world.

The chocolate process begins by sorting and roasting the beans to develop a specific flavor. Each load of roasted beans is different and needs different roasting times to achieve the correct taste for that specific batch of chocolate. After reaching their correct sweetness, the beans are milled into broken down bits; this is the foundation of the chocolate. The next step in the process is called milling. This is where the broken bits go through a series of milling that separates cocoa butter from cocoa solids. After 12 hours, mixing begins. Sugar and non-alcoholic cocoa liquor are added to the chocolate mixture and then refined to make sure it is the correct texture and taste. This mixture is then conched. Once the chocolate develops its flavor, organic ingredients such as fruit, nuts, chilies, bread, and salt are added to make specific batches of Theo Chocolate bars. Once the chocolate is fully roasted and milled, and appropriate ingredients are added, the chocolate is then molded and packaged. Liquid chocolate is poured into molds then hand-checked by factory workers before it is wrapped and shipped.

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Answer 5

Thorntons

Thorntons Ltd

Thorntons is a British chocolate brand established by Joseph William Thornton in 1911. Thorntons Limited has been owned by Italian company Ferrero SpA since 2015. Net income in its annual report of 2016 was reported at a loss of - £30.8 million with a drop in staff and number of shops across the UK. When Cadburys became part of a non-confectionery specific group, Thorntons became the largest confectionery-only parent corporation in the United Kingdom; while it retains a minority of sales of its established toffee and fudge, the group shifted its specialism, after post-war rationing ended, into chocolate and developed wide Continental, Swiss and Belgian chocolate ranges which (alongside novelties and decoration) form the bulk its sales. It is listed on the and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index. While cutting back on its high street presence, sales and production have increased and a small minority of its shops have started afresh or diversified to become cafés. In June 2015 Thorntons was bought by Ferrero SpA for £112m. Thorntons changed their trading name from Thorntons PLC to Thorntons Ltd in Nov 2016 and now their registered office is Ferrero UK Ltd in Greenford, UK.

Thorntons began in Sheffield in 1911; a business started by Joseph William Thornton who opened the company’s first shop at 159 Norfolk St in Sheffield with Peter’s father Norman Thornton as the manager at the age of 15.

Following a period of rapid expansion the 2009 results showed turnover increasing to £214.8 million, but operating profit decreasing to £7.94 million. There is still a significant impact of seasonality on the sales demand and a number of strategies have been undertaken to attempt to address this issue – however, 35% of sales are still in the seven-week period before Christmas and a further 10% before Easter. The impact of this on both manufacturing and service are significant, with temporary staff covering positions.

In January 2011, Jonathon Hart joined the business as CEO. Following a resultant strategic review in June 2011, Thorntons announced it would close between 120 and 180 of its shops.

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Answer 6

Tony%27s Chocolonely

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Answer 7

Toms International

Toms International

Toms International produces chocolate, liquorice and sugar confectionery in Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom. "Toms employs 1,200 - 1,700 employees depending on season and annually produces 50,000 tons of chocolate and sugar confectionery."

Founded in 1924 as Tom Chokoladefabrik A/S by Copenhagen chemists Hans Trojel, Mathias Maagaard and V.H. Meyer, the company is now a world-renowned chocolate producer. Originally the chocolate was a side item for sale in the chemists' retail shop on Vesterbrogade in Copenhagen, the founders launching their own products on Prags Boulevard between 1925 and 1929. The company was taken over by Victor B. Strand in 1942, who shortly acquired (1954–1956) the chocolate company Anthon Berg. In 1961, a new factory was designed by the famous Danish modernist architect Arne Jacobsen and consisted of a 22,000 m² factory hall and a 3,000 m² administration building on a site measuring 220,000 m².

Around the time of the factory's completion in 1962, Toms acquired A/S J. Høeghs Lakrids og Sukkervarefabrikker, which shortly was renamed Pingvin Lakrids. Toms' final acquisition was that of A/S Galle & Jessen, in 1971.

In 2011, Toms acquired German company Hanseatische Chocolade GmbH.

The company is fully owned by Gerda og Victor B. Strands Fond.

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Answer 8

Todos Santos Chocolates

Todos Santos (All Saints in Spanish) is a chocolate shop opened by Hayward Simoneaux in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1999. He began shaping his confections in the shape of Milagros, "small charmlike silver and gold offerings made to saints" in traditional Hispanic cultures, using custom molds and coatings of silver and gold leaf. Simoneaux's skills with the materials were refined as a fine art framer. Todos Santos chocolates are Valrhona-based, though fine packaged chocolates such as Knipschildt and Michel Cluizel originating elsewhere are also sold. The store also offers its own truffles "in flavors like black pepper, burn caramel, and red chile-tangerine", enclosed in "ornate" and "colorful" packaging.

Coordinates: 35°41′15.3″N 105°56′12.9″W / 35.687583°N 105.936917°W / 35.687583; -105.936917

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Answer 9

Ummah Foods

Ummah Foods established in 2004 is a UK manufacturer of Halal Chocolates. This follows a process where no alcohols, or animals fats are used in the manufacturing process, packaging or ingredients. The company was also given the name CHOCHALAL in the Daily Mirror coverage of Ramadan 2004.

It was founded by its current Managing Director Khalid Sharif and has manufactured two products. A caramel chocolate bar called Ummah Caramel Chocolate, and an Orange Chocolate bar called Ummah Orange Chocolate. The owner has been called the Muslim Willy Wonka in Muslim newspapers and magazines.

It is a community focused company and has supported organisations such as the London Sustainability Exchange and Muslim Youth Helpline.

It was the winner of the Muslim News Awards - Ummul Mu'minin Khadijah award for excellence in enterprise in 2007.

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Answer 10

Valrhona

Valrhona

Valrhona is a French premium chocolate manufacturer based in the small town of Tain-l'Hermitage in Hermitage, a wine-growing district near Lyon. It is now a subsidiary of Bongrain. The company was founded in 1922 by a French pastry chef, Albéric Guironnet, from the Rhône valley and has five subsidiaries and 60 local distributors across the globe. It is one of the leading producers of gastronomic chocolate in the world. The company also maintains the École du Grand Chocolat, a school for professional chefs with a focus on chocolate-based dishes and pastries. In 2015 Valrhona opened the École Valrhona Brooklyn, a pastry school in Brooklyn.

Valrhona's products are generally used in high-end restaurants.

Valrhona's products are provided as pillow chocolates on cruise ships, as well as being used in cruise ship cuisine.

Valrhona relies on long-term collaborative relationships with planters and chefs.

Valrhona sponsors the Ecole du Grand Chocolat cooking school.

Valrhona focuses mainly on high-grade luxury chocolate marketed for commercial use by chefs as well as for private consumption. The product line includes chocolate confectionery, plain and flavored chocolate bars and bulk chocolate in bars or pellets. Valrhona produces vintage chocolate made from beans of a single year's harvest from a specific plantation, primarily the Grand Crus which is grown in South America, Oceania and the Caribbean.

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