SWEET! Chocolate enrober registered to coat at festival

The Charleston Gazzette February 24-March 2, 2005

By Rusty Marks rustymarks@wvgazette.com

Mike Howard is a man of many interests, which explains why this Kanawha City undertaker is also a chocolate maker.

For more than 20 years, Mike and his wife, Georgia, have run The Candy Factory, a small candy manufacturing business that used to occupy a spot at the Kanawha Mall, but now operates from their Kanawha City home. They love to take the show on the road, demonstrating their art with a portable machine called an “enrober” that chocolate-coats anything you run through it.

“I love seeing peoples’ faces, and the bewilderment when they see what they’ve made, especially the kids,” said Mike Howard.

Children and adults alike can see the machine in action from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday during the Chocolate Festival in the Clay Center’s Grand Lobby. The festival, featuring 17 vendors of sweets, is being held in conjunction with this weekend’s Children’s Theater of Charleston production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, Roald Dahl’s classic morality story about candy king Willy Wonka’s quest to find an heir to his candy empire. The play will be put on at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Clay Center’s main stage. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for children.

Tasting tickets for the Chocolate Festival are 50 cents each, entitling ticketholders to samples of sweets by such companies as Holl’s, DeFluri’s, Jimmie’s Sweets, Ellen’s Ice Cream, Starbucks and more. Tickets for the festival and play are available at the Clay Center box office or by calling 561-3562.

Mike Howard, who loves demonstrating his machine, said it is a vital piece of equipment. A big metal bowl melts up to 250 pounds of chocolate at a time. As the bowl rotates, a scraper blade concentrates the melted chocolate in a big puddle, where it sticks to a fancy bicycle chain that carries it like a ladder up to a scraper and chute.

Finally, the chocolate runs into a metal bin that pours a steady ribbon of chocolate onto a moving wire conveyor belt. Anything placed on the belt runs through the ribbon and is covered in chocolate. “All candy makers have this machine,” Howard said. (Even the machines used by candy giants operate on the same principle, but with much larger vats and much longer conveyor belts).

Howard spends the major part of his time as funeral director at J.E. Johnson Funeral Home in Kanawha City. “When they come to me, they’re at their worst, and I try to make things a little bit better for them. If I can ease their pain just a little bit, I’ll have done my job,” he said.

Directing funeral homes is Howard’s career, but he has always had businesses going on the side. Mike and Georgia used to run restaurants before opening The Candy Factory in 1980. First located in a house on Washington Street East, the business was the first tenant when the Kanawha Mall opened. Mike and Georgia have been running the business from their home the past six years.

“We do a lot of the fun stuff, and we gear a lot of it for children,” said Georgia Howard, a retired nurse who is now in charge of The Candy Factory.

Mike and Georgia also make sugar-free chocolate, one of the first sugar-free manufacturers in the state. These days, The Candy Factory is strictly a wholesale business, supplying chocolate to Tamarack, Foodland and other local vendors.

Georgia Howard is a self-proclaimed chocoholic, but laments having to give up the stuff because of heart problems. Mike Howard actually isn’t particularly fond of the stuff. “It’s like if you own a pizza place and you’re serving the food all the time,” he said. “You just don’t want it any more.”

IF YOU GO: The Chocolate Festival runs 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the Clay Center’s Grand Lobby. Tasting tickets are 50 cents each at the center’s box office or call 561-3562. Children’s Theater of Charleston presents “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets, $12 adults, $10 children – at the box office of call 561-3562.