MARCELLUS, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Chocolate Pizza Company is experiencing tremendous growth as more and more people turn to shopping online during the pandemic.
The Marcellus-based company says for several weeks now it can sell in one day the same as it did in an entire month in 2019.
“Just like on the flip of a switch everybody’s moved their purchasing online and we’re shipping out hundreds of packages a day,” says owner Ryan Novak.
They keep adding customers and growing their production facility, pouring nearly $250,000 into new equipment the past four years.
“We’ve been able to keep up but it’s just been long hours and lots of work because we were ready for a steady growth but we weren’t ready for a doubling of our online business,” he tells NewsChannel 9.
Over the past two years, Novak says the company has really focused on its online presence, an area where they do a good deal of their business.
One thing Chocolate Pizza Company focused on was ensuring a smooth checkout process, including being able to send gifts to multiple addresses from one checkout.
Companies like Disney and Delta Airlines are just a few of the many corporations that use Chocolate Pizza Company for gifts.
Novak says, “A lot of businesses are sending thank you’s to their employees. Thank you for holding through us with this crazy year we’ve had, share this chocolate with your family. We’re getting a lot of shipments just to individual employees.”
Early this year Chocolate Pizza Company was looking at expanding its warehouse space, which it did this summer as sales grew.
“Before we were really stacked up, we’d have a thousand shipments going out and we couldn’t even walk in our facility, you’d be turning sideways trying to squeeze through the couple of pallets that UPS would be picking up that day,” he adds.
It may not sound spectacular but Novak says the additional space gives the company more room to store boxes so they have them ready for all the orders.
“When we get an order we gotta ship out 500, I can’t be waiting for boxes to come in,” he tells NewsChannel 9.
Novak adds that the extra space has also allowed them to set up work stations.
“We’re working on this company today, here’s the table all set up ready to go. Where before we really didn’t have that space we were just so crammed in there trying to get stuff ready so we continue to run long runs and try to get stuff done,” he explains.
The company has also added eight new employees bringing their staffing to about 20 workers.
Click here to learn more about the Chocolate Pizza Company.
