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Now In: About Us
Growing Up Making Candy
Michele Chirgwin began her journey as a candy maker in 1986. As a young mother of four daughters and a full time housewife she used her spare time to try out any new candy recipes that came her way.
She had learned some basic candy making skills while growing up in a large family in Lebanon, Oregon. During those childhood Christmas holidays she helped her mom make Old-Fashioned Fudge and Peanut Brittle to share with family and friends. Michele was always the one put in charge of stirring the kettle. It took 12 minutes to boil the perfect syrup to make the family’s secret fudge recipe. (Michele’s mom knew that it was a good way to keep her from fighting with her brothers and sisters, because Michele would never chance ruining the batch) It was an agonizing job, yet always worth it when friends said that it was the best fudge they had ever tasted.
So, when Michele became a mom she carried on the family tradition of making candy for the holidays. Then one day she tasted a Hershey bar truffle recipe that her mother-in-law had made and Michele’s candy world was forever changed. Knowing how secretive her own family had been with their fudge recipe she was a bit intimidated to just ask for a copy of this fabulous recipe. Well, it was her very own mother-in-law, so she took the plunge. “Of course you can have a copy of the recipe” said her mother-in-law graciously, and Michele’s truffle obsession commenced!
Chocolate Dipping Insanity
Every recipe book, every newspaper article, every chocolate magazine was gleaned for new ideas. Then one day at a church potluck one of Michele’s friends walked in with some beautiful chocolate dipped bon-bons. Michele immediately asked Cindy Wilson, “How did you manage to make such professional looking chocolates?” Cindy whispered her secrets to Michele and soon after the potluck Michele was back home trying to hand dip her own bon-bons.
And try she did. Thank goodness for Costco, because she could buy large bags of chocolate chips at a great price. At home she practiced hand-dipping her Hershey bar truffles while her older girls were in grade school and the younger ones were napping.
Of course there was always the challenge of convincing her husband that this candy-making obsession was not out of control. One day he came home from work a little early, opened the kitchen cupboard for a snack and all he could see were bags of chocolate chips piled up. He looked at Michele who was very busy dipping truffles for an upcoming family function and said, “Don’t you think we could get a little food in the house besides chocolate?” Well, Michele got smart and started hiding all of her bags of chocolate chips behind the cereal boxes and soup cans. As long as her husband could grab a bag of potato chips out of the cupboard without having to move any chocolate he was happy.
A Business Is Born
As Michele perfected her recipes and chocolate dipping techniques her family and friends started commenting that they were so good that she should sell them at boutiques around town. Those comments sparked Michele’s imagination and in the fall of 1989, Michele asked her girlfriend, Sue Hansen, if it would be possible to sell some of her hand-made chocolates at the annual church Christmas bazaar. As nervous as any first-time public speaker, Michele waited and watched from the sidelines to see if her chocolates would sell. And they did. That was just the beginning.
The following spring Michele began making truffles for her first wholesale account, a gourmet retail shop called The Tree House. She had a bit of an “in”, as her mother-in-law owned the shop, but even so, an amazing transformation began to take place as Michele realized that customers kept coming back for her chocolates. If she could sell them in this specialty shop then she could sell them in others as well.
Wholesale Chocolate Accounts
Through word of mouth and the help of an independent sales representative, gourmet grocers, coffee shops, card boutiques & gift stores in the Portland area started carrying Michele’s Chocolate Truffles. Now, instead of making truffles once a year for holiday bazaars, Michele was busy in her kitchen all year round filling truffle orders for her new customers.
In April of 1991, Michele was approached by a Portland candy company and asked if she would be willing to make special truffles according to their specifications. Michele told them, “no problem.” She received her first large wholesale order for 1000 truffles with a two week deadline. She drove home floating in the clouds, but quickly sank back to earth when she realized she was going to have a hard time making all of those truffles on her own in the specified amount of time. She called her friend Sue Hansen (from the church bazaars) and asked her to post a help-wanted sign on the church bulletin board. About 5 minutes later Sue called Michele back and asked if she could have the job. Sue Hansen became the first employee of Michele’s Chocolate Truffles.
Michele didn’t want to get too excited about having a large wholesale account. She figured she would make this Mother’s Day order and would probably never hear from them again. Two weeks later they reordered even more. So Michele started ordering her chocolate directly from Guittard rather than through a distributor. One week later 500 pounds of Guittard premium chocolate was delivered to her front door. There was no way to hide this much chocolate behind the cereal boxes so she stuck it in the master bedroom along the back wall.
500 Pounds Of Chocolate Arrive
When her husband came home that night, Michele was busy in the kitchen making his favorite dinner when she heard him yell, “Michele, what is in our bedroom?” “Oh that! It is Guittard chocolate,” she replied casually. “Oh, I can see that” he said, “but why is it in our bedroom and why so much of it and where in the world did you get it?” So she explained to him about the large reorder and she reassured him that she would sell all of this chocolate very quickly and get it out of their bedroom.
About two weeks later her husband drove into the driveway after a long day at work, hit the garage door opener and started to pull into the garage, only to see his side piled high with corrugated boxes and Styrofoam shipping peanuts. “Michele, what is going on?” he shouted as he came in the house after walking around all the boxes and packing material. Of course, Michele was busy in the dining room, boxing up truffles as fast as she could so she could clear off the dining room table and get ready to start dinner. She looked at him and said, “I think I have a real business.” He stormed into the bedroom to see another 500 pounds of freshly delivered chocolate.
A Commercial Candy Kitchen
By November of that year (and 4 employees later) Michele moved the business out of her home and into her first commercial candy kitchen. The new kitchen was an 800 square foot shop in Damascus, Oregon. Finally at the end of a long day Michele could go home and relax and not have to answer her home phone, “Michele’s Chocolate Truffles.” Her husband no longer had to walk around the five hundred pounds of Guittard chocolate stored in the bedroom and they could once again park their cars in the garage.
New Candy Creations
Now that Michele had a commercial candy kitchen and four candy makers, she began creating new chocolate confections. With a wholesale base of over 100 specialty shops, Michele figured that if those store owners bought chocolate truffles they might also buy toffee, turtles, cherry cordials and maybe even some Old-Fashioned Fudge from a secret family recipe! Research and development went into full bloom as the candy makers joined with Michele to develop new products and introduce them to existing customers.
The new confections were so popular that by June 1993 the company decided to move into a larger, light industrial location of 2000 sq. ft. in Clackamas, Oregon. Along with the move came the purchase of industrial candy making equipment. Michele’s Chocolate Truffles now owned a fire-mixer capable of cooking 100-pound batches of caramels, toffees and fudge. Michele also added a water-jacketed steel table for pouring, cooling and cutting candy bars, marshmallows & nougats. Then a cream beater was installed for stirring 100-pound batches of fondant, used in making her popular cherry cordials and butter creams.
A Retail Store Opens
Michele thought that she was a wholesaler of fine chocolates. She had her industrial equipment and her wholesale accounts but a funny thing slowly started to happen. As each day passed and people walked by her factory, they would stop and ask if they could buy some of the fresh chocolates they could smell her cooking.
So in April of 1997 Michele moved her office to the upper mezzanine level and built a small retail outlet in the empty space. Now all those passers-by, that just couldn’t resist stopping in after smelling all those wonderful aromas could finally sample and purchase to their heart’s content.
The business continues to grow. In September of 2003 Michele relocated her company once again to a larger 4000 sq. ft. location. (Just next door to the old store, so don‘t panic, you can still come in and buy our experiments or “goofs“ as we like to call them.) With a huge, red electric sign and retail windows facing 82nd Dr, Michele’s Chocolate Truffles, continues to encourages shoppers to stop by to sample and buy fresh chocolates.
Beautiful display cases show off 35 flavors of hand-made Truffles, Marzipan, Classic Butter Creams, Old-Fashioned Fudge, Cherry Cordials, Nut Clusters, Caramels, Nougats, Candy Bars, Toffees, Brittles, Seafoam, Melt-a-ways & more. A complete line of sugar free is also available.
Michele’s Chocolate Truffles has grown from a home kitchen to a candy factory which can produce up to 1000 pounds of confections each day. During the peak candy-making season, 25 candy makers, chocolatiers and packaging experts are busy working to produce the fine, quality, hand-made chocolates which you have grown accustomed to purchasing.
To be continued...
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