Today we went to See's Candies. As before with Ghirardelli, I was here to compare and contrast fine and industrial chocolate. There were some, shall we say, noticeable differences.
One of the first things I noticed was the display case of chocolates. This seemed similar to other fine chocolatiers I had visited in the past, such as Teuscher or John Kelly Chocolates. This was different in a noticeable way. They were giving out full bonbons for free. This was enough to raise eyebrows, but furthermore, they were unlimited samples. This suggested that they had an abundance of chocolate used for marketing purposes.
The next was also relevant to a use of chocolate as a marketing tactic. Just like at Ghirardelli, they had a few walls completely covered in chocolates and packages of chocolates, as well as toffees and gift sets, etc.
One other thing was how scripted all the employees were. I bet that if I asked them, they could give me the precise weight, nutritional info, and other facts and figures that were all ultra-accurate. I surmised that in a massive company like this, management doesn't trust their employees to think for themselves; therefore, they have designated things to say when the need arises. And so, another informative and noticeable visit ended.
Here I am outside of See's Candies. You can't see how much chocolate there is in there, but there's a lot, mostly used for marketing purposes.
This is me inside of the store, at one of the walls holding more chocolate than one would see in the entire inventory of the average craft chocolatier. And that's just one of the walls. There are two more walls, plus free-standing displays.
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