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Reputable chocolate means business for Gorant Chocolatier
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
The scent of chocolate is unforgettable.
At Gorant Chocolatier’s 55,000-square-foot production facility in Boardman, the scent awakens you as solid blocks of chocolate come to life in heart-shaped chocolate suckers, Tootles and French mints.
The quality of Gorant’s starts with the product and ends with the dedicated workers who melt the chocolate, make the caramel and mold the candy.
The workers are just as committed to making the chocolates as the Gorant customers are to tasting it.
“It is a testament to why we were able to succeed,” said Joe Miller, owner of Gorant Chocolatier in Boardman.
Business at Gorant has had its ups and downs through the years. Sam and Charles Gorant, two brothers from Youngstown, started the business making sugar mints in different flavors and pastel colors in their basement.
After door-to-door selling, Sam and Charles started to sell their candies at the popular downtown department stores, Strouss’ and McKelvey’s. Charles eventually traveled throughout Ohio to sell the candy.
The success the brothers had led them into the chocolate business. An anonymous man sold Sam and Charles the chocolate recipe along with equipment to make the chocolates. With the chocolate business came more success and new Gorant stores. In 1977, the large manufacturing facility on Market Street opened.
The company was sold off several times. By the early 2000s, Gorant products were in more than 500 corporate-owned American Greetings retail stores. Gorant also supplied more than 200 additional wholesale accounts nationwide.
In 2009, 34 Gorant stores closed after American Greetings sold off the company.
“We went from an $11 million company to a $3 million company,” said Jack Peluse, director of operations at Gorant Chocolatier.
When Miller bought the company in 2009, he saw the potential to add more and more contracted manufacturing for a variety of different private label customers.
“We are creating jobs for people,” Miller said. “Products out there today are going to Canada and Miami.”
Today, there are three Gorant Chocolatier locations in Ohio: one in Boardman, another in Canfield and a third in New Philadelphia. There also are licensed stores in Austintown, Alliance and Howland.
Retail sales is just one revenue stream for the candy company. There’s also the contract manufacturing, corporate business, fundraising, mail order and Internet sales.
“It’s a fun business, but we had to build it into a profitable model,” Miller said.
Miller continues to see positive opportunity for the future and the facility shows that.
Inside the manufacturing facility are multiple processes taking place at once. On one side, pretzels are delicately lined up as they run through the chocolate drizzle machine, known in the industry as the enrober, and on the other side, miniature nut clusters are placed on the line and half-covered with dark chocolate.
In another part of the facility, there’s a worker breaking up dark chocolate bricks to melt down in a large tank. An even larger melting tank is in another part of the facility with 5,000 pounds of milk chocolate heated to a temperature between 87 and 91 degrees.
The chocolate always stays at this temperature so it can keep flowing out.
In another part of the facility, two workers hand-mold heart-shaped chocolate suckers while someone else uses a process known as panning to make individual chocolate-covered almonds.
In addition to its own chocolate recipe, Gorant has its own cream and caramel recipes.
The final step is the gift room – where you can envision Lucy and Ethel trying to keep up with wrapping chocolates on a moving conveyor in the famous chocolate factory scene from “I Love Lucy.”
In one year, the facility will manufacture 350,000 to 380,000 pounds of chocolate products.
The workers, 46 full-time, eight part-time and seven seasonal, have just ended the busiest season for the candy company. Now, they are prepping for Valentine’s Day and Easter.
In 2015, sales were stronger than the previous year’s. The reputation of the candy has meant more business. When Miller bought the business, he was reminded of its reputable taste.
During the financing process, the bank receptionist said: “They make the best French mints in the world.”
“[The bank receptionist] is somebody in downtown Wooster,” Miller said. “That reputation is there.”