After two travel days we arrived yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana for our NOMADS Annual Meeting. Since the work didn’t start until tonight we decided, after a strong recommendation from good friends, to visit a local attraction – the South Bend Chocolate Company. As soon as you walk in the door you are struck with the wonderful aroma of chocolate and are immediately drawn to the display cases in the outlet store. We refrained from buying any of their wares – until after we took the factory tour. For us that was showing remarkable restraint.
Want to see where chocolate comes from? Click on the picture.
Some of their wares. There are several other displays cases and shelves around the store making decisions difficult.
Today they were coating pretzels. This line was coating with milk chocolate and the line beside it was coating with white chocolate. All the pretzels are inspected and placed on the belt by hand.
In fact, most of the work is done by hand, like separating these caramels …
… which start in the large sheets. (Yes, we did sample them.)
This chocolate Santa is solid, weighs 65 pounds, takes two days to make, and costs about $500. They make several of them every year.
This is where the products are packaged by hand and prepared for shipping.
In the museum is a large display of old candy packages, including these of Anne’s favorite candy bars.
We saw this odd grave marker in the museum, but our tour guide did not explain it. A Internet search revealed that Jeff is the Sales Director for the company and Mark Tarner is the owner.
RVing With a Purpose 