Bitzel's Chocolate creates corporate gifting options

Georgia chocolatier offers variety of candy, plus custom printing and packaging.

courtesy of Bitzel's Chocolate

Edible gifts have a reputation for being underwhelming. “It’s the same old box of chocolates, the same old can of popcorn, and it’s just not that good,” says chocolatier Ray Bitzel, founder of Bitzel’s Chocolate. “For a lot of the items, there’s not anything special about them. There are no frills and it’s costly. So we wanted to do something about that.”

Bitzel’s Chocolate is offering corporations more variety with a product line of artisan chocolate gift options of consistently high quality that are both tastier and more affordable, per the brand.

“Chocolate is expensive because it’s so labor-intensive,” Bitzel says. “We purposely built Bitzel’s so that we could do things differently and have economies of scale. Automation makes it a lot less expensive. We develop all the flavors, but our machines do the assembly and take away an enormous amount of cost while adding consistency.”

Bitzel’s automated process allows the company to produce as many as a quarter of a million high-end treats per day and offers corporate clients what they value most: custom personalization options and quick and efficient turnaround.

Gift options include baskets and boxes of assorted Belgian chocolates including not only milk, dark and white chocolate but also ruby and gold chocolate as well as single-origin chocolate bars, double-dipped truffles, bon bons, caramels, bark bites (flavored pieces of chocolate bark), chocolate-covered fruits and Schnappers—rich Georgia-grown butter-roasted pecans in premium Belgian coverture. Bitzel’s also offers packages for special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, to say “thank you” or “get well soon”).

“Corporations are moving away from cookie-cutter, mass-market items,” Bitzel says. “They want to offer special personalized gifts, and we’re able to customize both the chocolate and the packaging.”

Bitzel’s offers companies the opportunity to personalize these offerings. Using a 4K cocoa butter printer, Bitzel’s can print a company’s logo on a bar, bon bon or mega-stuffed Oreo. It can also create custom shapes like a corporate mascot. And they can receive their gifts in special custom packaging: personalized chocolate bar wrappers or custom sleeves with a company’s logo around a box of treats.

Equally as important in today’s fast-paced world, Bitzel’s can easily accommodate large or last-minute projects in a narrow timeframe.

“Amazon has changed the game as far as customers’ expectations,” Bitzel says. “Every client wants their order in days, not weeks. We had a company reach out to us on a Thursday and order 70 boxes with Georgia peaches. They asked, ‘Can we get this on Sunday?’ We said, ‘You can pick it up today.’ Speed is a huge competitive advantage for us because we can make so much.”

“I don’t know of another vendor in the country that offers the variety, the consistency, the customization and the scale that we do,” he continues. “We can turn things around quickly and keep it affordable.”

View Bitzel’s Chocolate’s full corporate gifting catalog here.

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Liz Parker Kuhn is the senior editor of Candy Industry and Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery, and has worked at BNP Media since 2012. She has written for CBS Detroit as well as for her own blogs. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. Liz can be contacted at (248) 839-7156 or at parkere@bnpmedia.com.