Chocolates à la Carte

Jack Sherwood: Vice President of Sales

SINCE coming to work at Chocolates à la Carte in 1995, Jack Sherwood has been on a mission to turn the company into one of the premier chocolate companies in the world.

This is no small goal, but considering that Sherwood joined Chocolates à la Carte after spending over 20 years at the Campbell Soup Company, he likes to think BIG.

He is happy now to be part of an entrepreneurial company that shares his strong customer service values. "As this company continues to grow, it is my job to make sure that customer service remains a top priority," he says.

Sherwood has developed several pilot programs since joining the company. In foodservice, he has created a specialty food distribution network to reach potential new customers such as restaurants and pastry shops.

In supermarkets, he has initiated a program where some in-house bakeries in Southern California are now successfully utilizing Chocolate à la Carte's dessert containers and capturing a share of the home meal replacement market.

And internationally, he developed a European market for some of Chocolates à la Carte's products.

His 1997 goal is to further grow the restaurant segment of the business, and to capitalize on the popularity of desserts and especially, signature desserts. "We want to be the number one source of signature desserts," he says.

Sherwood's experience at Campbell's Soup makes him uniquely qualified to accomplish this goal. There, at one time, he was director of marketing for a start-up restaurant venture. He quickly learned that wonderful desserts make a lasting impression with customers, and they help improve the restaurant's bottom line.

In the future, he sees Chocolates à la Carte aggressively growing with new products and new channels of distribution for its lines of fine chocolate creations. Even with this growth, however, he is determined that the company never lose sight of the fact that "we treat each order as if it were our only order."

"Working at this chocolate company sure beats canned soups," he says. "But since coming here, I now need to go to the dentist more often, and from tasting chocolate each day, I'm not sure if my office chair is shrinking or if I'm getting larger."