Presently based in Ann Arbor, MI with satellite production facilities in Toledo, OH, Truffle Junkies LLC is a flurry of chocolaty activity.  The season is so busy that little time is left for such mundane, yet important tasks as editing the content on the website or re-ordering business cards.  I guess when you make chocolate for a living, everything non-cacao related seems trivial.

Anyway, this is the story of how the Junkies got to this point.  It’s a tale filled with mystery, intrigue, and gratuitous sex and violence, and maybe a little bit of dark, bittersweet chocolate.  This isn’t the standard company About Us BS.  This is a journey.  Take your time with it.  If you don’t have the time, not a problem, just go to our store and spend your time buying lots and lots of our pricey truffles.  You won’t hurt our feelings.

Truffle Junkies was born out of the owners’ love of fine chocolate and the kind of pure word-of-mouth marketing that most fledgling start-up founders lie awake at night dreaming about.

Who would have thought that stubbornness, impatience, and massive superiority complexes could have created a business no less than 180 degrees from the patriarchs’ original careers?  A business actually based around making chocolates?!  Tell the kiddies, dreams do come true. 

Ok, impatience, stubbornness, and massive egos – basically things began with the search for really, truly excellent chocolates.  Actually, it began by the lack of finding those truly top-quality chocolates, and deciding that what they say is true, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.  So, the patriarchs decided to forego the search for tasty commercial chocolate truffles, and decided to re-harness their energies to making their own truffles, truffles better than anything available.

1000s of hours and loads of money later and the hunt for the perfect truffle recipes was progressing nicely.  Every super-premium, high cocoa content chocolate from across the globe was investigated, along with the highest quality, freshest ingredients.  Finally, their massive egos paid off.  The truffles coming out of their unimpressive kitchens at the time were better than anything they had tasted before.  They did it and it was sweet.  Of course at this time, there was no inkling of making this thing into a business.  These truffles were just for personal use.  Just because you work on perfecting your hollandaise at home, doesn’t mean you’re going to make a living making eggs benedict.  They happily ate their truffles.  Oh, and they shared them with friends and family.

"Whenever people tried the truffles, they got hooked. They had to have more and were constantly pleading for more truffles. They really became truffle Junkies. It seemed as though we were not the only ones looking for a truly superior piece of chocolate." As Patriarch J, a co-founder of Truffle Junkies remembers -

"We were basically forced by our own friends, relatives and co-workers to start operations of Junkie Party Planners.  It sprouted from their requests (or demands?) to make our truffles for their weddings and parties.

At first, we simply supplied our hand rolled truffles for their parties for dessert trays or table centerpieces. As we supplied more and more weddings, we noticed the horribly cliché and bland wedding favors guests were given at their tables. So, we decided to start tinkering around with our own wedding favors. One of the most important issues for us in the development of our wedding favors was the ability for us to be able to personalize them.  We found all kinds of unique packaging and ways to personalize the boxes, but the box was not enough for us.  We had to personalize our truffles themselves.  Believe me, it was not easy.  It took many long weekends, and much broken equipment until we found the right techniques, but I have to say it was worth it.  Our custom truffles, while going against our philosophy of letting the truffle speak for itself, not the pretty design on the outside, do incredibly enhance a wedding or party.  And if people want it pretty, who are we to argue?”

The fame kicked in about a week after the first wedding where Truffle Junkies wedding favors were introduced, and it was the first time that those two friends in search for the perfect truffle were actually forced turn their love of chocolate into a real, actual business.

They received so many calls from the guests at that wedding, all of whom wanted similar wedding favors or truffle centerpieces for their parties and corporate events, holiday presents, and for individual consumption in bulk. People were really excited about them. They became Junkies. As it turned around, guests were not the only ones getting hooked.

The caterers from the weddings started to call requesting Truffle Junkies products for their clients’ weddings, parties and in-house use. Market savvy caterers immediately saw an opportunity to diversify their menus with "magic-touch" truffles which drew guests around dessert plates, making any typically blah social event into a truly pleasant unforgettable experience. From there it wasn't long until requests came from restaurants, coffee shops, hotels and other businesses, all wanting Truffle Junkies truffles. It is pointless to speculate today what was the main driving force for these requests.  Was it the amazing ROI TJ truffles provided or was it genuine appreciation for the truffles themselves and an excitement over the opportunity to offer their clients something truly unique and special?  At any rate, from there Truffle Junkies' wholesale business was born.

The supposed ‘high-end’ chocolate companies out there all take themselves very, very seriously.  The snootier, the snobbier the better.  That’s not the TJ game.  “This business is fun for us and hopefully fun for our customers.  We never actually dreamed we’d be making truffles for a living, but here we are.  Now, why not have fun with it?  We care about one thing – making damn good chocolate. That’s all we care about. We don’t need some fake Belgian or French sounding name to give us recognition. Our chocolates give us recognition. We make chocolates that we would want to eat. Anything that would diminish the quality of our truffles is completely shunned. If we produce a piece of chocolate that is not up to our own personal standard, we don’t sell it. Period.

First, we hand roll and hand shell all of our truffles. This is why a lot of people say they look ‘funky.’ Most chocolate companies buy pre-made shells and fill them with their ganache. A few companies will offer some hand rolled truffles on special occasions and charge a significant upcharge for them.

Why do we go to the trouble to hand roll and hand shell each and every truffle we produce? This goes back to our core philosophy of making the best truffles we can make. Hand rolled truffles offer a much nicer mouthfeel than filled shells.  The tempered chocolate in the shell becomes an integral part of the ganache filling. Plus, you get the perfect amount of chocolate shell. Pre-made shells are typically too thick and overpower the delicate ganache. Everything ends up tasting the same. Making truffles with pre-made shells is a cop out for companies that want to make their chocolates faster and cheaper.”

Other ways in which TJ truffles are different:
Chocolate – Truffle Junkies uses the finest available chocolates for all of their truffles. They are high cocoa content chocolates produced from the best plantations in the world. They match each truffle flavor to a particular chocolate to get the best possible flavor combination.

Nothing added – They don’t add any extra sugar or preservatives to the truffles. Their truffles contain chocolate, cream and butter – that’s it. Their flavored truffles contain only natural flavors which have been developed in-house. A lot of companies use inferior chocolate and add extra sugar to mask the flavor. The chocolate the Junkies use is so good that they don’t need to add anything.

In conclusion of the above said, “We don’t care if you’ve been a pastry chef all your life, graduated from the CIA, or you think that the word ‘chocolatier’ makes you sound fancy. We make better chocolates than you do. (Nah nah nah nah nah, should come right about now, but no - it wouldn't be the way Truffle Junkies way, would it?).