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This is Chris Redgrave for Zions Bank Speaking on Business.
It was during his sophomore year in college when he was sitting with a group of his classmates who were working on space shuttle gateway projects and particle accelerators that Art made an offhand comment about how cool it would be to make his own chocolate. His friends all laughed and said he couldn't do it . So he set out to prove them wrong.
It took years of study, creating his own machines, forming a business partnership with Clark Goble and throwing away many batches of chocolate, but Art did it. He and Clark launched Amano Chocolate in February 2007. Almost immediately, they started doing well in terms of competitions and recognition, collecting many awards.
Art says each chocolate bar starts off with the very best quality of ingredients. He flies around the world to pick the cocoa beans up, from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic. If you look at the back of the bar, it has Tasty Notes with a short description of exactly where the beans come from.
Amano Chocolate is adding to Utah's impressive export totals and is sending their bars all over the world to Hungary, Sweden, the U.K. and China for starters. Pretty impressive for an operation with just four full-time employees on board. They're running tons and tons of chocolate every year, all made to suit the finest chocolate palate. Art is personal friends with a lot of the top chocolate manufacturers in Europe, and some of best chefs in the U.S. are now using Amano Chocolate in their restaurants.
Art and Clark were also very thoughtful when choosing Amano Chocolate as the name of their company. In Spanish, amano means "by hand" while in Italian it means "they love" and in Japanese it's "heavenly field."
For Zions Bank, I'm Chris Redgrave, speaking on business.
Amano Chocolates 450 S. 1325 West Orem, UT 84058 801-655-1996 www.amanochocolate.com
