Vermont chocolate maker celebrates quarter-century in business, changes recipes

COLCHESTER, Verm. (CNN, KYMA/KECY) - Many food brands boast about what's in their products, but one company is all about what's completely absent.

"We were the first ones to be peanut-free and tree nut free on purpose," said Mark Elvidge of Vermont Nut Free Chocolates.

Welcome to Vermont Nut Free Chocolates, which just marked 25 years in business.

"It's gone by pretty quick," Elvidge expressed.

Steady growth

Founded by the parents of a son with a serious nut allergy, the brand grew from the Champlain Islands to larger space in Colchester, finding steady growth over the years.

Researchers have said roughly 2% of American children have peanut allergies, along with more than four-and-a-half million adults.

"A lot of these families have had incidents where something has happened where they've eaten something, where a child has eaten something that they shouldn't have probably by accident, someplace where it wasn't labeled or they didn't know what was inside of the product. And they can end up at the hospital. I mean, it's very, very scary. So, if we can guarantee them that that's not going to happen when they're enjoying our stuff, then that's a big deal for them."

Courtney Schatz, general manager

The gourmet chocolates are produced in a facility promised to be not just peanut free, but also free of tree nuts like almonds and pecans. No coconut or sesame there, either.

"Free-form marking is growing"

"The free-from market is a growing category. More and more stores are giving more space to the free-from category," Elvidge shared.

So, Vermont Nut Free Chocolates is adding to its list of more than 200 allergy-friendly items for wholesale and direct-to-consumer sales, and announcing it'll go entirely egg-free, too, in 2024 removing from recipes another of the most common food allergens.

"People are now making much more informed choices about the types of products that they eat," said Sebastian Gorissen, digital marketing professor at St. Michael's College.

Gorissen views Vermont Nut Free Chocolates' laser focus on food safety as a source of business strength predicting shoppers who make choices based on what can be a life-or-death medical issue will be much more fiercely loyal to the brand than a casual chocolate buyer would.

"It allows you to really embed your brand into those consumers' lives, their daily routines, and know they might buy your chocolate every month, every week, every day if they are a chocolate lover, and have them come ack to you for years, decades, of their lives," Gorissen remarked.

And while allergies or dietary restrictions are what usually have people discovering Vermont Nut Free Chocolates for one specific member of a family, the company says it takes it as a huge compliment when the rest of the household then reaches for the label.

"It's not very long until the entire family decides they like Vermont Nut Free Chocolates better than anything else they've ever had in their house," Elvidge spoke.