Tucked between industrial and residential neighborhoods, a 26-year-old chocolate paradise exists. The chocolate factory’s reputation of making its customers happy is even recognized in its name — Euphoria Chocolate Company.
Founded and operated by a modern-day Willy Wonka, Bob Bury has expanded his chocolate heaven from its original East 17th Avenue and Willamette Street location to three other tempting sites. However, it is at its Factory Outlet Store on Bertelsen Road and Stewart Road where the chocolate is made and the magic happens.
Split into production and retail teams, the Factory Outlet Store is composed of two buildings — the actual shop and a separate plant several hundred feet away where the chocolates are made.
“What happens with our four stores is that we all put in our order on Monday and spend the first couple days of the week taking care of all the stuff that we need to make to fill those orders,” retail manager Tim Matteson said.
As with any business, organization is crucial. In addition to supplying itself, Euphoria takes orders from other companies, including Made In Oregon. In order to stay ahead of the game, the company has already began working on production for its busiest season — Christmas through Valentine’s Day.
To keep Euphoria running, employees must begin production early in the morning. The process of making the treats is an art form that is always being perfected.
Matteson, who has worked at Euphoria for 11 years, and Richard Rondeau, who has been with the company for about 14 years and now works with the production team, no longer smell the chocolate when they first come through the door each morning.
“I doubt, that after my week-long vacation, when I return to the production plant next door, that I’d smell the chocolate walking in,” Rondeau said. “I can always smell if something else is happening — if they’re heating the oven you can smell the caramel, but not the
chocolate itself.”
Creating the product is a bit of an art that must begin early each morning.
Tempering — the process of repeatedly raising the temperature of chocolate, allowing it to cool off by spreading it out, and heating it up once more — is something that must be done with precision.
This tempering process is what allows chocolate to retain its glossy, crisp look and prevents it from melting at room temperature.
“If you don’t temper pure chocolate, you end up with that powdery stuff on the surface — that’s sugar that separates out from it,” Matteson said.
From there, things are dipped, molded and spooned, and some of the chocolate is placed on trays to set. Sometimes this occurs multiple times in accordance to the number of layers an item may call for.
The tricky part for employees is estimating how much chocolate is needed to keep stores
in stock.
With the economy in a slump, production manager Donna Briggs has had to play things
by ear.
“Things aren’t selling as quickly, and different things are selling than last year,” she said. “It’s kind of changed, so it’s not like you can just completely go by the numbers from last year.”
Production worker Shelly Moser admits Euphoria is having difficulty selling chocolate in bulk this year.
“Usually, we’re a lot busier this time of year,” she said. “I think a lot of wholesale people are leery.”
Despite the downturn in sales, Moser and Matteson agree that things will most likely improve as the season progresses.
“That’s what happened last year,” Matteson said.
After 26 years, Euphoria has survived good and bad business years by focusing less on sales and more on personal relationships.
“The personality and the values of the owner of a small business make a huge difference,” Matteson said. “Working for somebody that doesn’t really care about employees, that becomes a very difficult job. He (Bury)’s very good at being a good manager and someone that has values and actually places value on people — his staff. It makes it a lot nicer than working for someone who’s only interested in what your sales figures are.”
Regardless of the economic climate, Bury says Euphoria maintains the quality of
its product.
Matteson said Bury’s extreme selectivity when choosing from hundreds of types of chocolates and local ingredients is another thing that sets Euphoria apart.
Euphoria works to be at the forefront when it comes to making wine truffles. The truffles rival the size of a child’s fist.
Euphoria plans on capitalizing its truffle expertise when it introduces spice truffles in a
few months.
“Bob has a tendency to talk to the public before we have the product, and he gives samples of the product before we have the product to sell,” Briggs said.
Matteson chimed in, saying, “We have people come in and say, ‘We had these spice truffles, can we buy some?’ and it’s like, ‘No, you can’t buy them.’”
The co-workers laughed, bantering and feeding off of each other’s answers as they explained Bury’s willingness to hand out samples to everyone from the UPS driver to the local radio station.
Despite all of the samples, no one at Euphoria has gotten tired of eating chocolate. As to whether it’s essential to life, however, is up for debate. While Briggs believes chocolate to be necessary with a light-hearted conviction, Matteson has a slightly different take.
“I don’t think it’s essential to life, but I think it’s essential to living a happy one,” he said.
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