So, I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have been busy interviewing potential new chocolate employees so we can be up to speed for the holiday season. Being in the chocolate business is like being in the retail business-in July, we are planning for February and in March we are planning for December.
I am happy to report that I have found a couple of great new employees-both who will be training as chocolate production staff. One of the challenges of being an artisan chocolate maker is that everything that we do is done by hand, so it takes a while to train someone in the techniques of how we do things all chocolate. It is not like we are training them on the operation of a big piece of machinery that will do all of the chocolate work-they have to learn the various technical variances of the chocolate we happen to be working with on any given day. I will keep you posted on their progress.
Speaking of big chocolate machines, we have upgraded to a new chocolate machine that can melt and temper about 60 pounds of chocolate at one time, this versus the machines we were using previously which had a capacity of only 10 pounds. Our newest addition to the family is the JKV 30-which is a very easy to use machine that does not rely on a lot of fancy bells and whistles. The advantage of a machine like this is that if something does go wrong, it can be repaired quite easily, for there are not a lot of complicated digital parts. This chocolate machine, if maintained on a regular basis will last for decades-which is makes it a very valuable asset to the production line and helps add to bottom line.
