DELTA, British Columbia — ChocXO, the high cacao chocolate brand made with simple ingredients, and low in sugar, announced today that it has completed the expansion of its facilities in British Colombia. The coveted chocolate brand expanded production space within its existing facility, while simultaneously adding additional warehouse space, to increase its automation and capacity by 40%. ChocXO also added a bar wrapping and automated caddy packaging line which enables the company to offer more snacking SKUs.
"As we continue to increase our brand's footprint across North America, more production and storage space means increased opportunity for ChocXO. We are now well positioned for future growth of our company and our brand," said Richard Foley, CEO (Chocolate Experience Officer) and Founder of ChocXO. "We will utilize this space to increase product innovation, maximize throughput and efficiency on our current production lines, and with added capacity will be able to double our sales."
ChocXO's existing production space was expanded by 10,000 square feet with the build-out of additional processing and packaging space. Before the expansion, ChocXO's warehouse stood at 55,000 square feet with 18,000 processing and packing and with the expansion, the warehouse now stands at 73,000 square feet with 28,000 processing and packing. This expansion was a 10-month long process that was recently completed with the commissioning and startup of a third production line, in addition to further upgrades and automation of the first two lines.
The new plant, in addition to its unique capability to produce up to 50 boxes of boxed chocolates per minute, with auto display-box erection and insert packing, also has tremendous bar making and retail bagging capacity with its three molding lines, which are integrated from start to finish with the following features:
- Melting: Over 250,000 lbs of chocolate
- Tempering: 8 continuous chocolate tempering machines
- Molding: 3 continuous 625-650 mm molding lines, with one shot, solid and integrated inclusion, and topping capability
- Wrapping: 2 SiG auto feeding flow wrappers and 3 Carle Bunch and Twist wrappers
- Bar Packing: 1 Syntegon bar and caddy packer
- Bagging: 2 x R2B Horizontal bagging lines
- 2 x Bosch Vertical bagging lines
- 1 x Lee pre-made bagging line
- All lines with automated feed and bypass collection systems
- Case Packing: 3 X Bosch automated case packing lines
The warehouse is located at 1648 Derwent Way Delta British Columbia Canada. For more information, visit www.chocxo.com or check out @Chocxochocolatier on Instagram, and @ChocxoChocolatiers on Facebook.
ChocXO, which was founded in 2014 as a bean-to-bar chocolate company in Irvine, Ca recently scaled production by adding capacity in its Canadian chocolate molding plant. ChocXO's seasoned chocolatiers span multiple generations, and they use only fine flavor cocoa beans that are naturally nutty, fruity, and less bitter than traditional "bulk" cocoa beans. Less bitterness means less need for additional sugar. Only a small amount of organic sugar is needed to underscore their chocolate's already delightful taste, without any substitute sweeteners or "natural flavor enhancers". Great chocolate should never come with guilt, and healthier chocolate should never come with ingredients you cannot pronounce.