Guittard Chocolate Company

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A bar of Guittard single origin bittersweet chocolate

The Guittard Chocolate Company is an American-based chocolate maker which produces high-quality couverture chocolate using original formulas and traditional French methods. The chocolate is produced in syrups, blocks, large chips, and powders for pastry chefs, home cooks, and wholesale customers like See's Candies, Kellogg's and Baskin-Robbins, as well as chocolatiers like Recchiuti Confections and Garrison Confections. The company has been family-owned for more than four generations. Gary Guittard took over as company president and CEO in 1989.

The company was started by Étienne Guittard, who emigrated from Lyon, France, during the California Gold Rush. In 1868, ten years after the gold rush had ended, Guittard founded the company on Sansome Street on the San Francisco waterfront. Horace C. Guittard, Étienne's grandson, was in charge when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed the city, but the factory survived. In the aftermath of the quake, a new plant was built on Commercial Street, and later Main Street. In 1955, the Embarcadero freeway led the company to relocate to a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m²) facility at the corner of Guittard and Rollins road in Burlingame, California, where it remains to this day.

Guittard was the first chocolate company to offer high-quality chocolate chips. [1]

The E. Guittard Collection vintage product line contains blends and single bean varietal chocolates, including the Quevedo, a varietal couverture chocolate from Ecuador, the Chucuri from northwest Colombia, the Sur del Lago couverture chocolate from western Venezuela, and the Ambanja from Madagascar.