ST. LOUIS – Local businesses like the Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Factory are spending extra time making sure that locals will have an extra sweet Valentine’s Day.
“We’ll start in the month of January; we’ll make peanut butter hearts, truffles and pack our heart boxes of chocolates. But really, the big business is like the day of Valentine’s Day,” Dan Able Jr., chief chocolate officer at Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Factory, said.
The factory has around 75 employees that start production at 4 a.m. to produce their freshly made strawberries. Normally, it takes three people to cover one production line, but for this special day, it takes 16 people.
“The strawberries come in fresh, and then we have to clean them, cut them, dry them and all of that has to happen before the 8 a.m. production shift starts,” Able Jr. said.
Every day, the factory goes through 2,000 lbs of chocolate. The massive number of strawberries allows them to create a variation of Valentine’s Day sweets.
Walter Knoll Florist has rooms filled with deliveries and pick-up orders ready to bring joy on the special day.
“We have plenty of beautiful roses,” Chuck Knoll of operations at Walter Knoll Florist said.
Preparing for the day takes much longer than most would think.
“Oh my gosh, we prepped for this starting last year. So, there’s a lot of work that goes into this,” Knoll said.
