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Where: Greens Fork
What: Birthday Chocolates delivers small boxes of homemade chocolates—most often turtles—to workers on behalf of their companies or organizations, usually for birthdays but also for work anniversaries or other occasions.
Price: A wrapped two-piece box is $7; a six-piece box is $12. The price includes delivery.
How: Employers provide Birthday Chocolates with a list of employees and the date a gift should be delivered. The company makes the chocolates, packages them in a gift box and delivers them. Some companies receive a delivery or two a month. For other companies, Birthday Chocolates sends hundreds each month. Over 30 years, he said, “we’ve sent out millions and millions” of chocolates.
Owners: Connie and Bruce Watts
History: Bruce Watts said when he left the military in 1989, he “prayed on my knees in our bedroom for exactly one hour and asked God for a business idea. I wrote down everything he told me in a notebook.” One idea was a chocolate gift delivery service. “I paid for a billboard in Dayton, Ohio, that same day advertising our gift service. Zero sales,” he said. “About a month later, I ran an ad in the Cincinnati newspaper and received one order in the mail from a grandmother asking for us to send gifts to all of her grandkids throughout the year. She sent us a long list of names and addresses and birthdates, and that’s what gave me the idea to go after yearly lists instead of one-time orders.”
Why turtles? “Connie’s mother, Evelyn, suggested chocolate-covered caramel with pecans, and we have used that from day one,” Bruce said. He said the company has tried other options, but “everybody likes turtles.”
Fun fact: The company’s biggest order came from the U.S. Postal Service in Wisconsin. “They ordered Christmas gifts for every employee, and I had to borrow $30,000 from my dad in New York City to cover the costs since they provided a purchase order and said it could take a few months to get paid,” Bruce said. “Yes, I did pay my dad back.”
Samples? The company offers free samples to human resources departments to test the product.
Website: BirthdayChocolates.com/
—Compiled by Lesley Weidenbener
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