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Chocolate Bars Shop Now. Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies. Compare Compare. Ghirardelli One-Bowl Flourless Brownies. Mini Bittersweet Chocolate Cakes. Hot Chocolate Bombs. Grand Chocolate Chip Cookie. He had sold all the chocolate he had with him, and he advised the confectioner to come north.
At first he sold chocolate, coffee, liqueurs, and other items to the gold miners, and by he had established a store in San Francisco. Ghirardelli's company had several locations in its early years, and apparently business was up and down. But by the company was importing , pounds of cocoa beans a year, as well as importing and grinding spices and selling coffee, wine, and liquor.
Chocolate manufacturing was the mainstay of the business. The equipment needed to sort, blend, roast, and grind cocoa beans took up a lot of space, and the expanding business meant the company needed bigger quarters.
Domingo Ghirardelli retired in , leaving the company to his sons, and in the company purchased a square block in San Francisco bounded by Beach, Polk, Larkin, and North Point Streets. This area luckily survived the earthquake and fire of , and Ghirardelli continued to expand its facilities, erecting new buildings in what became known as Ghirardelli Square. The Ghirardelli site had originally housed the Pioneer Woolen Mill, and Ghirardelli hired the mill's architect to design each of its new buildings.
The company built a Cocoa Building in , the Chocolate and Mustard Building in , the Power House in , and finally a clock tower and apartment building in These were all built of red brick with white trim, and the site is still considered architecturally impressive.
Business boomed during World War I, when the factory operated around the clock producing chocolate for the armed forces. Domingo Ghirardelli, Jr. That year he stepped down, and his younger brother, Domingo Lyle, became president.
The company flourished during the s. Ghirardelli was the largest chocolate factory west of the Mississippi. Besides bulk chocolate and cocoa, the company made retail goods such as instant chocolate malted milk powder.
Ghirardelli also did a sizable business in mustard. The company was actually the only mustard manufacturer west of the Mississippi. It sold mustard under the Ghirardelli brand, and also made all the mustard sold under the Schilling brand. Domingo Lyle Ghirardelli retained the presidency until , though he worked closely with his brothers and other family members in executive positions. The company's manufacturing plant used large, expensive equipment, and Ghirardelli had three mechanics working full time keeping the machinery in good working order.
Ghirardelli imported cocoa beans from all over the world, from the Ivory Coast to Panama, Samoa to Colombia. Each bean had different characteristics, and blending them for the proper taste and color was a sophisticated art. By the s, much of the company's machinery had become antiquated, and the business was exceedingly labor-intensive. As well as using elaborate machinery for processing chocolate, the company also made its own cans and boxes, manufacturing everything it needed for its business except for paper goods.
It was clearly no longer an up-to-date factory, but the Ghirardelli family apparently had little initiative to make major changes at that point.
As the Ghirardelli family grew, the number of stockholders increased. Domenico was an Italian chocolatier, first introduced to the craft as an apprentice to a candy maker when he was a young boy. At the age of 20 he moved to Uruguay to embrace the coffee and chocolate business, before moving to Peru to open his own store.
A few months later he opened a second storefront, his first shop in San Francisco, but in both locations would burn down within a few days of one another. Domenico moved on to open an unsuccessful San Francisco coffee shop, before finally opening the shop that would become Ghirardelli Chocolate Co.
The company became officially incorporated in Since its inception, the company has prided itself on embracing innovation and being at the forefront of new techniques and technologies. The shop has experimented with a variety of products, including a line of alcoholic beverages until , and a variety of goods like coffee, spices, and even mustard throughout the years.
Innovation became tradition throughout the company — in a Ghirardelli employee discovered a flavor-enhancing technique that would eventually become widely used throughout the chocolate industry. To this day, the bay-facing Ghirardelli sign is a landmark for boats coming in and out of the Golden Gate Strait.
According to the company, in , the Ghirardelli plant survived the Great San Francisco Earthquake and the ensuing fires that followed. They resumed operations just 10 days after the historic disaster. In the Ghirardelli family sold the Ghirardelli Chocolate Co.
Having outgrown its space with worldwide demand for its retail and wholesale chocolate products, Ghirardelli production moved from Ghirardelli Square to a manufacturing facility in San Leandro, Calif.
In , Ghirardelli Square earned its place on the National Historic Register, preserving it for future generations. In , The Quaker Oats Co. In , Quaker Oats sold Ghirardelli Chocolate to a private investment group. Throughout the s, Ghirardelli opened several retail stores, beginning with Monterrey, Calif.
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