Bucks
Chocolate Factory
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Would you believe that you can lose weight by eating chocolate? Some of the customers at the Chocolate Factory in Trumbauersville believe that you can…as long as you don’t consume tons of it.
The owner, Louise Spindler, has been making handmade chocolates since 1984. She opened her business in Lahaska, just a stone’s throw from the Herald offices. “I’ve been playing around in chocolate for 22 years,” Louise quipped.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, she worked as a technical librarian for Johnson and Johnson and then Unisys. When her children finished college, Louise decided to leave the security of corporate America and venture into business. A candy store in Lahaska became available. Within a few years, she’d doubled the sales and outgrew the retail space.
Louise spied a classified ad offering rental space in a building formerly used as a cigar factory in Trumbauersville. She never looked back. Today, the Chocolate Factory boasts of 5,861 yearly sales transactions from customers all over the world.
Thanks to her daughter, Karen Souter, and her son, Todd, the Chocolate Factory came of age on the Internet 12 years ago. Karen wrote the copy and Todd navigated the intricacies of web page creation. “We were the first to have a catalogue on the Internet,” Louise told me. “Back then, if you searched for “chocolate,” you’d find our store and one other competitor.” Today, that same search would list over three million organizations in the chocolate business!
“Karen won a Bobby Award for her copy,” Louise continued proudly. The prize is given annually for clear, concise and descriptive text that blind people can visualize.
I looked at a world map filled with pins stuck in countries representing where her customers come from. Unfortunately, terrorism has made it all but impossible to ship her chocolate out of the U. S. But her international customers keep her very busy.
The Chocolate Factory uses five tons of chocolate every year. “Customers tell me that if you eat just a one half ounce of chocolate an hour before dinner, you’ll curb your appetite,” Louise laughed. That may be what Marissa and Natasha Nauroth, two teenagers, were thinking. The Milford Township sisters bought a few items as I watched enviously.
“Doctors say that an ounce of chocolate is good for you,” Louise added. “There are lots of anti oxidants in dark chocolate.” She measured an ounce…two small chunks, 1 ¼ inch by 1 ½ inch, by ¼ inch thick. I sampled a small piece of “chocolate swirl” composed of the three types of chocolate which Louise produces…milk, dark, and chocolate. Two hours later, I still wasn’t hungry.
“Double dipped peppermint patties, truffles and almond butter crunch are our top sellers,” she told me. The store is filled with chocolate items appropriate for the season. “On Valentine’s Day, the walls are full of hearts,” Louise said. “You should see the store at Christmas time. It’s a beautiful wonderland.
“We do corporate logos too,” she added. “Our son (Warren Spindler from nearby Perkasie) is a sculptor. “He made several molds for us.”
Trumbauersville has been good to the Chocolate Factory. When residents asked the company to add retail space, the borough amended the zoning. By the way, it’s located on 118 North Main Street (215-536-7004). And for those fearful of sugar, Louise offers sugar free chocolate too.
Louise doesn’t mind commuting from her home in central New Jersey, 90 minutes away. “I listen to books on tape,” she said. “It’s a fun business. People in this business are really nice.”
“Since 1984, there’s been a well kept secret in Bucks County,” the Chocolate Factory brochure reads. Maybe the secret’s out. As Louise says, “chocolate…a perfect substance for an imperfect world.”
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith