It’s the sweet treat from San Francisco, the decadent chocolates that have given you a reason to indulge on a daily basis with conveniently wrapped chocolate squares and bars. The Ghirardelli Chocolate empire has grown from a simple collection of bars to a full-fledged chocolate company that offers truffles, miniature squares, and even baking chocolate to tempt every chocoholic.
How much do you know about Ghirardelli Chocolate? Here are ten interesting facts about this famous confectionary company:
1. Ghirardelli Square was almost turned into condominium property. When the Ghirardelli factories moved to San Leandro, California, the local community was gearing up for new housing in the area. However, San Francisco’s elite pitched in to protect Ghirardelli’s buildings and built around it instead. Today, Ghirardelli Square still stands with a working manufacturing plant and equipment imported from France.
2. Ghirardelli is owned by Lindt & Sprungli. Although Ghirardelli started as an independent enterprise in the late 1890s, the company was purchased by Lindt & Sprungli in 1998. Lindt chocolate is a more popular find in Europe, and now ships both Ghirardelli and Lindt products worldwide.
3. The store opened in 1852 was named ‘Ghirardely & Girard’ so that people would pronounce the name as it was spelled. The name is pronounced with a hard ‘g’ (Gear-ar-delly).
4. Each Ghirardelli dark chocolate square contains 4.25 grams of fat and 55 calories; the same amount of calories as a Snickers Mini chocolate, and less fat than four pieces of dark chocolate Hershey kisses that contain 5.8 grams of fat.
5. Ghirardelli controels the entire chocolate manufacturing process. The Ghirardelli chocolate company reports that it is one of the few companies that manages the entire process of blending the cocoa beans, roasting, and finishing the product.
6. Ghirardelli rejects almost 40% of the cocoa beans it locates, simply because of quality control procedures and requirements.
7. Ever wonder why Ghirardelli chocolate is so smooth? The Ghirardelli refining process ensures that each chocolate flake is refined to less than 20 microns instead of the standard 40 microns of other chocolate manufacturers.
8. Ghirardely & Girard imported 200 pounds of cocoa beans in 1852 but reached 450,000 by 1885. The first year of operation was the year that made Ghirardelli famous; the store still stands in San Francisco today.
9. Ghirardelli was first acquired by The Quaker Oats Company. The Quaker Oats Company purchased Ghirardelli in 1986, but sold it to a private investment group in 1992. Most of the recipes and confections, however, remain unchanged to this day.
10. Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Shops have become famous for their hot fudge sauce. The Dark Chocolate version was unveiled in 2005, and the sundae topping quickly gained favor with ice cream and chocolate lovers alike at retail stores in the early ’90s.
When Domenic Ghirardelli left South America to open up a store in California, nobody could have predicted the oncoming demand. After patenting the Broma process – his process of creating powdered chocolate – Ghirardelli built his company with astounding success. Whether you’re enjoying a hot fudge sundae or a handful of Ghirardelli squares, it’s a confection rooted in 150 years of American history.
