The Guittard Chocolate Company is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

-based chocolate maker which produces couverture

Couverture chocolate

Couverture chocolate is a very high quality chocolate that contains extra cocoa butter . The higher percentage of cocoa butter, combined with proper tempering, gives the chocolate more sheen, firmer "snap" when broken, and a creamy mellow flavor....

 chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

 using original formulas and traditional French methods. The company is headquartered in Burlingame, California

Burlingame, California

Burlingame is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame. It is renowned for its many surviving examples of Victorian architecture, its affluence, and...

.

The chocolate is produced in syrups, blocks, large chips, and powders for pastry chefs, home cooks, and wholesale customers like See's Candies

See's Candies

See's Candies is a manufacturer and distributor of candy, particularly chocolate, in the western United States. It was founded by Charles See, his wife Florence, and his mother Mary in Los Angeles, California, in 1921. The company is now headquartered in South San Francisco, California...

, Kellogg's and Baskin-Robbins

Baskin-Robbins

Baskin-Robbins is a global chain of ice cream parlors founded by Burt Baskin and Irvine Robbins in 1953, from the merging of their respective ice cream parlors, in Glendale, California. It claims to be the world's largest ice cream franchise, with more than 5,800 locations, 2,800 of which are...

, as well as Recchiuti Confections and Garrison Confections. The company has been family-owned for more than four generations. Gary Guittard took over as company president and CEO in 1989.

The company was started by Étienne Guittard, who emigrated from Lyon, France, during the California Gold Rush

California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...

. In 1868, ten years after the gold rush had ended, Guittard founded the company on Sansome Street on the San Francisco waterfront. Horace C. Guittard, Étienne's son, was in charge when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

1906 San Francisco earthquake

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

 destroyed the city, but the factory survived. In the aftermath of the quake, a new plant was built on Commercial Street, and later Main Street. In 1955, the Embarcadero freeway led the company to relocate to a 75000 square feet (6,967.7 m²) facility at the corner of Guittard and Rollins road in Burlingame, California

Burlingame, California

Burlingame is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame. It is renowned for its many surviving examples of Victorian architecture, its affluence, and...

, where it remains to this day.

Guittard was the first chocolate company to offer chocolate chip

Chocolate chip

Chocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape. They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter.-Origin:...

s.

The E. Guittard Collection vintage product line contains blends and single bean varietal chocolates, including the Quevedo, a varietal couverture chocolate from Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, the Chucuri from northwest Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, the Sur del Lago couverture chocolate from western Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, and the Ambanja from Madagascar.