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Business & Tech

Local Business Profile: Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers

Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers has special deals that are good for your wallet--and even better for your tastebuds.

If you’re like me, you’ve always wondered what decadent treats lay behind the doors of Maggie Lyon  Chocolatiers at 6000 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. 

It's a retail store and national wholesaler that was once awarded the exclusive Olympic license to make all of the chocolates for the 1996 Olympics.

And there's an “Open to the Public” sign out front. Michael Pollack, whose parents bought Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers in 1988, said the retail store only makes up about 4 percent of total sales, but it's very important to their business, because it provides crucial feedback about customers' likes and dislikes. “We have a lot of very loyal customers who will give us their honest opinions,” he said.

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They have two wholesale divisions. “We sell into the gift and gourmet industry. And then we also sell into the promotional market where we do products for corporations for giveaways and promotions,” Pollack said.

You can always expect to find special promotions happening at the Maggie Lyon retail shop that is open to the public, too. There’s an area called the “one for two for three." If you buy one product you'll pay retail price, if you buy two it’s discounted, and then if you buy three products it’s essentially wholesale price.

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You may be surprised to find out what their most popular retail items are: the mistakes. These rouge chocolates taste just like their counterparts, but have some minor cosmetic issues. They get thrown out for even the tiniest of imperfections and you can purchase them for a fraction of the price.

The number one sellers overall are the truffles. “But that’s only because we have 24 different varieties of truffles,” Pollack explained.     

Also, don't miss the chocolate-covered potato chips, almond toffee and English butter toffee. “I like the dark chocolate seesaw caramels,” he said. “There’s just something about that salt that just sets off the flavor of the chocolate and the caramel.”

If you don’t feel like stopping in rush hour traffic to get your chocolate fix, don’t despair. You can find Maggie Lyon’s tasty treats at Nieman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Good Things in Historic Norcross, to name a few.

Back before Rich's and Macy's merged, you could find Maggie Lyon chocolates at Rich's, it was the only other brand they sold besides Godiva. In fact, it was Rich’s that got Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers involved in manufacturing candy in the first place.

Originally, Rich’s made their own chocolates; they had a candy making facility in downtown Atlanta on Peachtree Street. In 1983, two years after Maggie Lyon Chocolatiers first opened its doors, Rich’s decided to get out of  the manufacturing side of things comletely and only focus on retail.

Ruth Thornburg, the original owner of Maggie Lyon, bought the candy making equipment and started manufacturing the candy and selling it back to them.

When Jeff and Linda Pollack took over in 1988, they found that Thornburg had great products but the two month shelf-life was too short to really give retail outlets enough time to sell them. With the help of expert candy technologists they took Thornburg's recipes and tweaked them. 

They also expanded the wholesale side of the business. “In 1993 we bought another company called Connie’s Handmade Toffee in California,” Pollack said. “We picked up not only their product line but their company base, expanding our business a little bit more nationally.”

One thing has remained exactly the same at Maggie Lyon since its beginning: the name. Thornburg named the business after her grandmother-in-law, Margaret Lyon.

“They changed it to Maggie Lyon because they thought that sounded a little bit more southern,” Pollack explained. “They just thought it had a little bit more of a ring to it."

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