The Ethel M Chocolate Factory is located in Henderson, Nevada and continues to produce gourmet premium chocolate for all of the Ethel M and Ethel's brand chocolates. The company distributes their products mainly via phone and internet on their website (www.ethelm.com), although they also operate several retail outlets located in and around Las Vegas, Nevada. Also located at this plant are the Ethel M Botanical Cactus Gardens (which feature over 300 species of desert plants), and a small branch of M&M's World. A part of the factory is open to the public and visitors can take self-guided tours.
Customers who visit the Ethel M Chocolates factory and cactus garden are welcome to take a free self guided tour of the botanical cactus garden and gourmet chocolate factory to learn about premium chocolate making and the traditions of Mars Inc. chocolate making. The botanical cactus garden is also host to several community events throughout the year, including the Cactus Lighting Event hosted every November.
Ethel M is owned by Mars Incorporated and was named after the mother of Forrest Mars, Sr.
Forrest E. Mars, Sr. created Ethel M Chocolates in 1978, which opened in 1980, as a project to cure the boredom he experienced after retiring. According to researcher J.G. Brenner, "Forrest established the venture in Nevada because it is one of the few states that allowed the sale of liqueur-filled cordials." He started Ethel M with two of his past associates, Alan Thomas, as General Manager, and Dean Musser, as CFO. Mars commissioned engineer Stephen H. Edelblute to design and build the factory, former Candy factory owner Fred Dent to assist in developing his chocolates and Karen Grover, a recent research assistant. Within a few years of its opening "the company had reached annual sales of $150 million, from seventy Ethel M stores throughout the West."
In 2007 the company made the transition from Ethel M Chocolates into Ethel's Chocolate. The new branding boasts a whole new line of 48 different handmade-gourmet chocolates designed by master chocolatier Jin Caldwell.
In late 2007 the company responded to public demand for the classic line of chocolates by re-releasing six varieties of chocolates in their retail stores in the Las Vegas area, though 16 varieties are available at the factory location. The company is perhaps most known for its fine liqueur-filled chocolates.
Other than at the factory (located at 2 Cactus Garden Drive), Ethel's stores can be found in Nevada at the California Hotel, and Gates A-D of McCarran International Airport.
Famous quotes containing the words ethel, chocolate and/or factory:
“The very “in” had babies the same time Ethel [Kennedy] did, in the same hospital, with the same obstetrician ...”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“The man who invented Eskimo Pie made a million dollars, so one is told, but E.E. Cummings, whose verse has been appearing off and on for three years now, and whose experiments should not be more appalling to those interested in poetry than the experiment of surrounding ice-cream with a layer of chocolate was to those interested in soda fountains, has hardly made a dent in the doughy minds of our so-called poetry lovers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The factory was very fine;
He wished it all the modern speed.
Yet, after all, ‘twas not divine,
That is to say, ‘twas not a church.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)