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Company history: As a young boy working in his father’s candy store in the 1970s, Mark Tarner got an early taste of the sweet life. The experience helped shape his journey to launch a successful chocolate company. What started as a chocolate-making business under a license from the University of Notre Dame in 1991 has grown to include hundreds of employees across 18 locations in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, including one on Monument Circle in Indianapolis. The company’s 58,000-square-foot factory and museum in South Bend is home to one of the largest collections of chocolate memorabilia in the world, including a 1,300-year-old Mayan chocolate pot.
Products: chocolate bars, coffee, cookies, fudge, hot chocolate, malt balls, nuts, pretzels, raisins
Locations: 18
In the works: Construction is underway on a 90-acre complex northwest of South Bend that will include a 60,000-square-foot factory, an 18,000-square-foot museum, a restaurant, farmers market, hiking trails and retail space. The attraction is expected to create 144 full-time jobs and bring 150,000 visitors a year.
Fun fact: Tarner is an amateur paleontologist who spends his spare time excavating dinosaurs and other bones.
Company headquarters: 3300 West Sample St., South Bend
Website: www.sbchocolate.com
—Compiled by Peter Blanchard
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