Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate
Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate was started in 2004 and is owned and operated by Mimi Wheeler. It is a family-owned business, perched on a dune in the quaint village of Empire. Mimi’s love for rich, dark chocolate and a deep connection to her garden inspire her truffles and other chocolate creations. She use fruits, edible flowers and herbs from a summer garden and from the soils and the natural beauty of northern Michigan. Travels and studies of chocolate in France and Scandinavia also helped give birth to this production. Grocer’s Daughter chocolates are all-natural and contain many organic and other naturally grown ingredients.
Contact information:
12020 S Leelanau Hwy, Empire … (231) 326-3030 … www.GrocersDaughter.com
Read this excerpt from Pat Stinson’s story, “Heavenly chocolates made by Grocer’s Daughter are so good, you’ll moan” which ran in the Glen Arbor Sun in August 2004:
For three centuries after the Spaniards brought the first cacoa beans to Spain from Mexico, “chocolat” was known only as a thick beverage, full of nutrients, served at breakfast to royals and aristocrats while still in their beds. Today’s chocolate is no longer a beverage, (cocoa – a powdered form of chocolate without the cocoa butter – has replaced chocolat), nor is its present-day incarnation as a confection meant as a luxury exclusively for the upper classes.
And that’s the way Mimi Wheeler, a Glen Arbor-area chocolatier, thinks it should be. “Good wine is not for everyone, because it’s so expensive,” she explains. “Good chocolate is for anyone; I like that idea.”
