MAHONING COUNTY Chocolate company owner plans rapid expansion

The owner envisions 40 Shelton-Mathews stores within 10 years.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Mahoning Avenue candy company whose chocolate has been rated among the world's best is moving to Boardman as the first step in a national expansion plan.
Dr. Jeff Stover announced today that he is planning for the rapid growth of Shelton-Mathews Chocolates after taking over sole ownership of the company from Don Mathews, the company founder. The Boardman physician had owned 30 percent of the company.
"It's going to take some capital and real energy to expand the company, and being 72, Don realized he didn't want to take it to the next level," Dr. Stover said.
First step
The first step will be moving operations from a house at 2503 Mahoning Ave. to a larger, more visible location at 4150 Market St., about a half mile south of Midlothian Boulevard. Dr. Stover said he bought the building about a year ago and remodeling is under way.
The new store, which will open about July 1, will offer the company's award-winning chocolate but also feature coffee, fresh-baked pastries and croissants. The dining area will have four or five tables.
"We want to make it first-class," Dr. Stover said. "It's going to be a beautiful place where people can come and relax and enjoy some good food and great chocolate."
The company does few walk-up sales for its $30-a-pound chocolate because it has a cramped showroom on Mahoning Avenue and only a small sign, he said.
"People don't expect to find us in a house. I think people have tried to find us and never did," he said.
Dr. Stover has hired Jim and Susan Tropea, who used to be bakers at The Beat Coffeehouse in Youngstown, as bakers. Ryan Silvashy, a local resident who is a recent graduate of Texas A & amp;M University, is overseeing marketing and sales as the company expands.
Opening other stores
Once the new store is up and running, Dr. Stover hopes to open a store in either the Cleveland or Pittsburgh areas. He said he probably will use franchising to reach his goal of having 40 stores within eight to 10 years.
He said he wants Shelton-Mathews to make a name for itself in chocolate retailing the way Starbucks has done in coffee and Krispy Kreme has done in doughnuts.
"No one has done that in the chocolate industry," he said.
Dr. Stover said he is splitting his time between making chocolate and working in the emergency rooms in Geneva, Conneaut and Andover.
He bought into the company a few years after Mathews, a retired marketing professor from Youngstown State University, founded the company in 1991. Mathews had preferred to remain a small company, primarily relying on Internet sales and catalog sales.
Dr. Stover said he intends to upgrade the company's Web site later. The company's mailing list has 5,000 names, with only about half of the people being from the Mahoning Valley.
Chocolatier Magazine and Consumer Digest have featured Shelton-Mathews in articles on the world's best chocolate, and the company placed best in the nation and second-best in the world in a 1998 competition.
Dr. Stover said he intends to enter more competitions and will return to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen, Colo., after an absence of several years. The show features fine wines from around the world, and Shelton-Mathews is one of only two chocolate companies to be invited.
shilling@vindy.com