Editor's Note: Introducing Meet Me Mondays - Candy Version! I am Britta Malsch, the Purchasing Manager at Anderson's Candy Shop. I also help the Andersons with social media duties. As I enter my 10th year at the store, another one of my goals has been to help introduce each of our delicious candies to our wonderful customers, while also providing a tool for the general public to be able to identify our candy. I hope you enjoy this series which will highlight all the Anderson's Candy that you love!
Thirteenth in our series is Almond.
When selecting centers for our chocolates, we are picky. And we spend a LOT of time sampling and vetting our suppliers to make sure we have the best quality possible, while also keeping in mind folks still need to be able to afford our chocolates.
Over the years this challenge has required more and more time, as many of our former suppliers have either gone out of business or been gobbled up by consolidation with bigger companies which now require unrealistic order minimums for shops like ours.
So much so that supplier vetting, and management has become a part-time position at our shop. One Leif Anderson used to handle and today, falls largely to me, with the guidance of Tracy and Kate Anderson.
Why do we care so much about our ingredients? Because what goes inside our chocolate is just as important as the chocolate itself. And we want you to know every time you unwrap one of our candy bars you will find consistent quality.
This is showcased well in our Nut Centers. The first in this blog series being the Almond Bar.
When it comes to the almonds in our Almond bar and pieces, we have chosen California nonpareil almonds that are roasted and packaged fresh to order for us right in nearby Elk Grove Village by NIDA Trading, a locally owned company.
When searching in a box of our candies for a chocolate covered almond, you will look for a candy cup that has two pieces of chocolate nestled inside and they will be tipped on their sides.
They will be sort of rounds pieces, each with a small "o" on top. (These pieces are not perfect circles because they are chocolate dipped nuts and not all nuts are uniform in shape and size.)
Each single round almond piece will actually have two nuts inside, next to each other. So that means...one candy cup of two pieces actually contains FOUR almonds!
When trying to identify our Almonds candy bars you will look for an oval puddle of chocolate with almond shaped lumps along the top!
. I remember almost 10 years ago when I was first trained to package candy at the shop. I had to learn all of the different marks on the bars and pieces I remember being a little confused as to how to tell which nut bar was which.
All of our nut bars all look very similar, they are the same shape and size. And they all have lumps and bumps where the nuts lay in the chocolate, and only some of the nuts are recognizable through that chocolate. Thankfully, our dipping room staff leave "clues." When the candy bars come out of the production area, there is usually a naked "guide nut" somewhere laying on the board that the candy bars are dipped on to.
Way back 10 years ago, when I was being trained, I realized then that I didn’t know what different nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, Brazils...) actually looked like, besides a cashew! Now that I have trained others, I realize this is a very common occurrence when training new staff. After learning what the different kinds of nuts look like, this became much, much easier of a task when packaging up our nut bars!
Some Fun Facts before you go!
You can order a box of JUST Chocolate Covered Almonds by calling us at 888 214 7614 or using our Make a Special Request feature on our website!
Almonds are also GLUTEN FREE!
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