FogHorn June 8, 2017  -  URSULA SCHNYDER - Swiss Chocolate Making

 

                                                                                              

When she emigrated to the US in 1994, she sold her school. Once settled here, she decided to do another Masters, in international relations, and got her green card. She wound up getting a job with a Swiss newspaper and traveled to every state. Her editor asked her to do something on food so she visited the French Laundry, a chocolate bakery and  fell in love with food. She began taking bakery classes, and learned how to do chocolates. She grew up eating chocolate, the good stuff, every day. It is part of the Swiss culture. She feels like a Swiss ambassador, to report accurately about the diverse country of Switzerland.

 

After finishing SF Baking School she went back to Switzerland to learn chocolate and the business. She is a control freak, a necessity to be a chocolatier. She remains in touch with her Swiss mentor, although his approach is how it will look first; with her it is taste first.

 

Why HMB?  She was able to start small, catering desserts in Silicon Valley. She had a private list of customers, corp and private and it grew. Corporate gifts became a year around staple of her business.  The shared kitchen she was using became a liability. Temperature is critical in chocolate making. It was a daily temperature fight with other baking establishments.  She began to look for a commercial kitchen, which is very hard to find. She looked at one here in HMB on a warm day in Palo Alto, it was10 degrees cooler here.  That was the clincher! 

 

On starting a business at the age of 55:  "Celebrate sweet 55", means to celebrate experience, hence the name of her business. The business opened in October 2016.  It is still in the start up phase. Ursula loves to talk about business and her view. According to her, starting something new keeps us young. She is proud and humble to be able to do this. She has two full time employees, one is an experienced baker and the other a chocolatier. She has a gala event at Filoli coming up. The store is at Shoreline Station. They ship, sell at the store and online. Some of their popular products are message in a box, a message written in  chocolate;  Egginer (?) Mountain, is their signature chocolate because it is a hard mountain to climb.