FINDLAY — Like most candy retailers at this time of year, Dietsch Brothers is awash in shades of red. Heart-shaped boxes covered in rose, scarlet and pink paper, or furred in ruby red velvet, line the walls, waiting to be filled with any number of chocolate-covered caramels, metaways, creams, fruit jellies and nut clusters. Pink-ribboned boxes of chocolate truffles stand at the ready for lovers in a hurry.
“We always joke, men don’t shop early,” said co-owner Jeff Dietsch. “It’s, ‘I’m on my way home, I need something!’”
According to a survey by the National Confectioners Association, 94 percent declared they wanted to receive chocolate or candy for St. Valentine’s Day. And most people, it seems, will get their wish. About $1 billion is spent on candy for St. Valentine’s Day, according to the NCA — 75 percent or more of which is chocolate.
OK, so perhaps their outlook is a little biased. But who doesn’t love chocolate? Especially on St. Valentine’s Day, when chocolate’s reputation as an aphrodisiac and its association with indulgence make it a favorite gift?
Dietsch Brothers and other local purveyors of chocolate goodies are gearing up for one of their biggest sales days of the year. Our love of chocolate leads the way.
Chocolate and love
Chocolate wasn’t always the sweet confection we know it to be today. Anthropologists suggest cacao consumption began as early as 1400 B.C. in Mesoamerica, as an alcoholic beverage, made by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds or “beans.” It was bitter; one Spanish explorer wrote that it was “a bitter drink for pigs.” But the addition of sugar or honey fixed that, and by the 17th century, it was a fashionable drink for Europe’s upper classes.
It was thought to have magical properties by the Aztecs and Mayans, and by Old World drinkers, too. A chocolate house in London in 1657 advertised it as “a West Indian drink [which] cures and preserves the body of many diseases,” according to Smithsonian.com. In France, it became a culinary staple. Louix XV’s favorite mistress, Madame du Barry, drank a cup of chocolate each morning.
Solid chocolate chocolate didn’t find its way into our mouths until 1847, when British Joseph Fry discovered a way to mix cocoa powder, sugar and cocoa butter into a paste that could then be molded into bar. Another British chocolate maker, Richard Cadbury, had the idea of marketing his family’s “eating chocolates” in heart-shaped boxes in 1861.
New methods of mass production, coupled with Victorians’ penchant for sentimentality — they popularized Christmas cards and the “merry old elf” image of St. Nicholas, after all — helped forge the now-unbreakable links between chocolate candy and St. Valentine’s Day gifting.
Watching our waistlines
Valentine’s Day offers a welcome boost for the chocolate confection industry, which is experiencing declining sales in the U.S. About $1 billion is spent on candy for Valentine’s Day — 75 percent or more of which is chocolate, according to the National Confectioners Association.
But as Americans seek answers to an obesity epidemic — in 2014, the latest figures, nearly 38 percent of adults were obese — many are avoiding sweets and are switching to healthier, protein-based snacks.
According to the online database, Statista.com, the average volume per person of chocolate confections consumed in the U.S. and Canada is expected to be around 9 pounds this year, down from 11.9 pounds in 2010.
The downward trend prompted Hershey’s to introduce a new line of meat-based protein bars last year.
There’s also more competition between chocolate-makers, as costs have risen and more specialty chocolate-makers have entered the market. According to Statista.com, the price per unit of chocolate rose from $10.39 in 2010 to $13.64 in 2016. That helped boost revenues from $19.4 million in 2010 to $21.5 million in 2016, even though production volume dropped during that same time period.
“What we charge has steadily climbed as the prices we pay for our ingredients go up and for the help,” Jeff Dietsch said. “I made 35 cents an hour when I started. Now, we’re looking at $15 an hour for a high school kid at 16 looking for his first job. I think that’s driving it.”
Local outlook: yummy
Hershey’s may be putting more money into meat snacks, but not Dietsch Brothers. The local chocolatier, celebrating its 80th anniversary, is doing so well, it invested in a 7,000-square-foot expansion of its headquarters at 400 W. Main Cross, including a 900-square-foot boost to its retail area. It opened to the public last fall.
“We were crowded up here, for one thing, and candy has grown so much, we needed to have more space to get more things out,” Jeff Dietsch said, standing near a new wooden counter and display case loaded with boxes of truffles. The space used to hold a wide hallway and the store’s candy packing operations. The hallway wall was knocked out, new public restrooms were added, and the packing operations were relocated.
“Basically, we pushed everything back,” Dietsch said.
That included a new kitchen, where butterscotch flavoring for Dietsch’s butter pecan ice cream simmered and stirred in a huge copper kettle on a recent afternoon. Almonds, peanuts and pecans are roasted here, too, for nut clusters. There are several marble tables, where sheets of caramel are allowed to cool overnight before being cut into thumb-thick rectangles. Nearby, a mechanical enrober was dousing rows of salted pretzels with a thick layer of milk chocolate, for Dietsch’s popular chocolate covered pretzels.
“It’s our best-seller,” Jeff Dietsch said.
Several of Dietsch Brothers’ 85 employees moved among the machines, checking temperature gauges, adding a pitcher of melted chocolate to the enrober and preparing rows of clear molds for chocolate bunnies for Easter, the next big season of the chocolate calendar.
“Valentine’s Day is a very good holiday but it is short, it’s two days,” Jeff Dietsch said. “Christmas and Easter are bigger, they’re longer holidays.”
Not just candy
Chocolate is a big seller for other retailers on St. Valentines Day, too, not just confectioners.
“For daily sales, it will be our biggest day of the year,” said Sara Anderson, the baker/owner of Sara’s Sweets on South Eastown Road. “Christmas is our biggest season, but Valentine’s Day, it’s [like Christmas, but it’s] all jammed into one day.”
Anderson said she’ll be adding more chocolate items to her daily rotation of cupcake flavors. Chocolate and raspberry, a classic combination, will be on the list, along with a chocolate strawberry cupcake combo.
“We’ve done chocolate and chili together with a little bit of cinnamon,” she said. “It’s really good, but people are hesitant to try anything different. That’s probably the most out-of-the-box combination we’ve done.”
She said her most popular pairing by far is chocolate and peanut butter. She makes a Buckeye Cupcake: chocolate cake batter with mini chocolate chips stirred in and a chocolate-covered peanut butter “buckeye” ball baked inside, frosted with peanut butter buttercream and topped with a miniature buckeye.
“It’s our No. 1 seller by far, even when it’s not football season,” she said. “We just added it to the menu every day.”
Even Dome’s Nut Shop in downtown Lima expects an uptick in business, according to sales clerk Carol Ream.
Put a little chocolate on those peanuts and cashews, it seems, and they become a St. Valentine’s Day treat, one with ties to ancient civilizations and imbued with mythical powers of seduction and romance.
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