Subsequent time you wander by means of the specialty meals aisle in Entire Meals, you could wish to search for the Colts title for a product with native ties.
And no, it has nothing to do with the Indianapolis soccer staff.
This Colts has all the things to do with chocolate and the myriad methods one can enrobe chocolate round issues akin to almonds, salted caramel, peanut butter and graham crackers. That is, in spite of everything, Colts Chocolate Co., handcrafted in Tennessee, owned by former Chicagoland space members of the family Dirk Peterson, Michael Doherty and Chris Smith, and Ashley Quinn (a good friend of Peterson’s and St. Louis native).
Their signature merchandise vary from Colts Bolts, a puck-sized peanut butter cup with all-natural peanut butter topped with almonds and sandwiched between layers of chocolate; Bolt’s Bites, golf ball-sized variations of the Bolt; and Marie McGhee’s Bumble Bees, the Colts tackle a turtle.
“We invoice our merchandise as a contemporary twist on basic goodies,” mentioned Peterson, a civil engineer by commerce, now companion in Colts Chocolate.
Assume, for instance, fudge brownies, however layered with whiskey-infused caramel and ganache.
“It’s one thing such as you by no means tasted earlier than,” he mentioned. “Tremendous wealthy.”
The Bumble Bees are studded with roasted pecans and salted caramel; graham cracker crumbs are baked in butter and blanketed with chocolate for his or her Broadway Grahams.
“It offers it a very tender texture and a very tender chunk, just like the crust of a cheesecake,” Peterson mentioned. “It's one thing you’ve by no means tasted. You simply change a little bit little bit of the ingredient to make it simply that a lot better, and other people find it irresistible.”
The chocolate itself is sourced from the Barry Callebaut facility within the Southwest Facet neighborhood of Archer Heights, a part of a Switzerland-based chocolate firm with its U.S. headquarters in Chicago — a change in manufacturing introduced on by the brand new homeowners.
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Peterson, a former Barrington resident and LaPorte, Indiana, native, purchased the Nashville-based Colts in September 2018 together with his cousin, Doherty (an Elmhurst native) and Smith (his spouse’s uncle from the McHenry space). The members of the family noticed Colts Chocolate, based in 1984 by Mackenzie Colt, a solid member of the previous TV collection “Hee Haw,” as an funding thought.
Whereas small, Colts was doing gross sales inside the excessive six figures with its award-winning recipes, he mentioned. After a rebrand and a transfer to a brand new manufacturing unit, Colts merchandise moved from 4 Entire Meals shops in Tennessee to a whole lot of shops across the nation, and shortly The Contemporary Market places.
Doherty, a River North resident and Fenwick Excessive College alumnus, mentioned it began with the Elmhurst Entire Meals.
“I used to be pondering if we will get into a minimum of the Midwest area of Entire Meals, I’ve bought a reasonably good foothold so far as household, associates, and faculty connections the place if we get the phrase out, individuals will be capable to acknowledge the Colts model,” mentioned Doherty, a former BMO Harris worker. “I believe we bought added in June to all of the shops within the Midwest. It’s been actually cool to see a chocolate model from Nashville get welcomed within the Chicago space. All of our household and associates have been actually excited to see the model come into shops.”
Taking the model to the subsequent degree hasn’t been simple. Rising the model through the COVID-19 pandemic had its challenges. Working example: Provide chain constraints. Chocolate shortages, after which a trucking scarcity grew to become a hurdle in getting product anyplace final December, Doherty mentioned. So he flew from Chicago to Philadelphia, picked up a 20-foot U-Haul truck and drove it to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to the Colts Chocolate provider’s warehouse, picked up about 10,000 kilos of chocolate and drove it 15 hours by means of the Appalachian Mountains into Nashville.
“And that was to make Christmas occur, in any other case we by no means would have fulfilled company orders within the December push that we had — our greatest time of 12 months,” Peterson mentioned. “For us, it was a life-or-death scenario.”
However the Colts staff is bent on thriving, not simply surviving. Already in additional than half of all Entire Meals shops, Peterson mentioned he hopes that can soar to 100% by the primary quarter of 2023, to develop into a everlasting a part of their specialty part plans. Doherty and Peterson mentioned they consistently get footage and texts from family and friends about discovering Colts merchandise whereas visiting small retailers and boutique retailers in Nantucket and Martha’s Winery.
And whereas the mainstays hold clients returning, Doherty mentioned Colts Chocolate encourages its social media followers to recommend new chocolate merchandise for the corporate to attempt on a month-to-month foundation. The Colts staff is seeking to transfer ahead with the Jolt, a coffee-infused Bolt-esque product the place espresso beans are within the chocolate.
Followers whose concepts develop into a product of the month obtain a $100 present card. Current picks embody a chocolate-covered cookie dough chunk, and a s’mores model with a marshmallow middle.
“There’s 1,000,000 completely different chocolate bar manufacturers on the market … and your head simply goes in circles making an attempt to determine what bar is healthier,” Peterson mentioned. “We discovered a distinct segment within the specialty meals part by the cheeses and wines. Our Bella Bark and our Bolts, you chop them up, and place them subsequent to the meats and cheeses on a charcuterie board, they pair very effectively with wine.”
As discuss of enlargement within the subsequent 5 years facilities round high-end gourmand grocery shops., Doherty and Peterson mentioned they’ve mentioned opening a Chicago-based retail location — a potential chocolate cafe within the vein of the Starbucks Roastery, with uncommon and unique choices on show.
“We had been very shut a 12 months and a half in the past, proper when COVID hit, to organising a kiosk or a cart in Water Tower Place. After which it didn't come collectively,” Peterson mentioned. “Chicago can be the subsequent market due to our connections — we all know the market, we really feel snug there. That will be after we perhaps arrange yet another store in Nashville. However that’s most likely perhaps a 12 months or two down the road once we can take into consideration the retail facet of issues after we get our toes on the bottom with the wholesale.”
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