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By Julie Moran Alterio |
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Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get," goes the expression from the movie "Forrest Gump." Heidi Cinicolo, a one-time dental office manager and real estate agent, wasn't looking for a new life when she enrolled in a three-day chocolate class at the "I remember having my hand dipped in a vat of chocolate. We were rolling truffles, and I said, 'Oh my God, I've found my calling,' " Cinicolo said. Two years later, Cinicolo spends her days at her small chocolate factory in Valley Cottage. Her business, Heidi & Arthur Chocolatiers, keeps her steeped not in deeds and real estate listings but in melted chocolate, cream, butter, fruits, nuts and herbs. Cinicolo credits the "Arthur" in the company's name - her father, Arthur Wartenberg - with making her chocolate dreams come true. |
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Although making chocolate became a passion after the course, Cinicolo still spent her days as a Realtor at Century 21 Grand until about a year ago.
That's when her father came aboard as an investor and helped her turn a hobby into a business.
Before then, she had spent about $1,000 of her own in books and classes, including an online course at Canada's Ecole Chocolat.
Cinicolo realized she had a gift for chocolate when her father's business associates came back with praise for chocolates they received as a gift.
"Quite a few of them said, 'This is fabulous,' and they wanted to invest in my company. I didn't have a company at the time, and my father said, 'If people think it's that good and they want to invest huge sums just to get a piece of the action on something there was no action on yet, you know it's not a bad idea,' " Cinicolo said.
Wartenberg, a 74-year-old toy distributor who lives in New Jersey, offered to become a business partner as he was approaching retirement in his own career.
"He said, 'You know what? If you want to take this seriously, I'm in,' " Cinicolo said. "He became my investor and my business adviser. We definitely collaborate on just about everything. He has an enormous wealth of business acumen and experience."
Initially, the father-daughter team considered a retail shop with a coffee bar.
"I didn't have the confidence that I could get people in the store without having something like that. But it became more about granite countertops and the aesthetics rather than the chocolate, which is really my passion, so I said, 'Let's just find a factory and instead of spending $5,000 on a display case, I'd rather put it into the chocolate and do it online,'" Cinicolo said.
The factory, in Clarkstown Executive Park, is four minutes from Cinicolo's home in Congers, where the 42-year-old chocolate maker lives with her husband and three children ages 12 to 16. An older child, age 18, is at college in Delaware.
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"I wanted something extremely local. I believe in investing where you live," she said.
The operation is a family affair.
"Except I do most of the cooking," Cinicolo said. "I taught my father to dip fruit and roll truffles, but the detailed molding and making the ganache and all that other stuff, I still do. My mom likes to do the ribbons on the packaging. My daughter comes after school. My husband pitches in."
The factory recently was certified as kosher, Cinicolo said.
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Despite the small factory and family roots, Heidi & Arthur Chocolatiers is competing in rarefied company. Cinicolo's schooling in gourmet chocolate and her own culinary inclination led her to the high end of the chocolate business. A four-piece box of chocolates or truffles is $10. A 9-ounce box of dark chocolate almond bark is $31. "In chocolate, 90 percent of it is labor, so to work with cheap ingredients and not the finest nuts and the finest herbs and everything like that is silly," she said. Cinicolo's candies are draped in premium chocolate from Bernard Callebaut or Valrhona. The flavors are inspired by today's trends, including chai tea ganache in white chocolate, green tea ganache in dark chocolate and Chinese five-spice truffles rolled in crystallized sugar. "To me it's a labor of love. I could do this all day, every day. I put on my CDs and I could be there for 12 hours and not realize that time flew, but it is extremely labor intensive, and if you are going to do it, why shouldn't it taste amazing?" Cinicolo said. Her favorite creation is chocolate-dipped vegetable chips. "I always thought those Taro Chips looked beautiful, and the salty and sweet is always a good combination. It looks like potpourri in a bowl. It's gorgeous, and it's delicious," she said. Heidi & Arthur Chocolatiers is starting up in business just as the market for gourmet chocolate is expanding. Market research firm Mintel International reports that sales in the premium chocolate market rose 129 percent from 2001 to 2006, from $896 million to $2.05 billion. Mintel expects the market to reach $3.5 billion by 2011. The Mintel report cited growing consumer interest in dark chocolate, thanks in part to medical research attributing positive health effects, such as reduced risk of stroke and heart failure, to its flavanols and antioxidants. The Mintel report also cited the increasing popularity of exotic flavors, like those in Cinicolo's chocolates. But the recipes are only half the package - literally - Cinicolo said, because the presentation is almost as important in the premium chocolate business. "Finding a fabulous food photographer and graphics designer and packaging was a big part of it," she said. She imports her lime green and brown boxes from "My father has a thing about ducks," she said. He also picked the name for the business, in a nod to his toy distributing firm, Arthur Enterprises. "I'm usually very behind-the-scenes, but when I was doing all my research and going to school in the chocolate world, everybody uses their names. I wanted to be on that level, on par with the upper end of the chocolate industry, and my father just loves to see his name," Cinicolo said with a laugh. Cinicolo and Wartenberg have invested about $100,000 in the business, which primarily markets by word of mouth and a Web site that went online in December. Many of her customers are corporate clients similar to the ones that inspired her father to invest in her business. Cinicolo networks at local business groups and has tapped her acquaintances for leads, including Jamie Czajkowski, a district sales manager at Celgene International who ordered candy for his clients and employees at the holidays. Czajkowski said his wife met Cinicolo in college in "I was looking for something for the reps that work for me and for the customers, as well. I was looking for something extremely professional, tasty and something that steps it up from the typical Russell Stover," he said. He ordered about 20 boxes of chocolates and about 20 boxes of nut bark. "They came in cool packaging, tied up with a bow and with a card, ready to go," he said. Lee Stern, a managing director at health-care consulting firm Analytica International in Cinicolo placed Analytica International's brochures and business cards in the gift baskets the firm sent to clients. "She was willing to work with me about what was in the basket. She understood it was the face of my company," Stern said. Jadwiga Dydynski, the office manager at architecture firm Ways2design in "Christmas baskets usually are extremely boring, and these were nice little things," Dydynski said. "It had extremely beautiful presentation." Because Cinicolo's chocolate doesn't have preservatives, its shelf life is just three to four weeks, making it impractical to sell at retail stores where volume is not high. "When you put it in the hands of a retailer and they paid you for it, they will keep it on their shelves until it sells. If it's past its prime when somebody buys it, that's a reflection on me. So I hesitate to do that because I lose total quality control," Cinicolo said. These days, she is looking ahead to Easter and planning her ducks and bunnies accordingly. Cinicolo thinks back to the first chocolate class, which she took on a whim, and marvels at her new career. "I have kind of always been looking for my niche in life," she said. Reach Julie Moran Alterio at jalterio@lohud.com or 914-666-6189. |
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