Photo by Shirley Ruhe
Emily Aranda, head chocolatier at Artisan Confections, is pressing small Christmas tree designs into the gingerbread holiday candies. She says they expect to make 11 batches of 265 different chocolates today. Her assistant, Rachel Green, is working the other end of the candy line.
Jason Andelman has just spent all day packaging his hundreds of boxes of chocolates for shipping. Artisan Confections is now open three days a week for in-store pickup, but since the pandemic hit, the business has shifted from mostly in-store customers to mail orders. He says shipping is a lot more work. In-store, you can just hand the customer a box, but shipping requires putting the chocolates in a box, addressing the package, and usually there is a note.