Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolates is a food and drink brand headquartered in North Salt Lake, Utah. It was founded in 1964.
The first big customer for Mrs. Cavanaugh's chocolates was the banker deciding whether to lend Marie Cavanaugh money. In 1964 she brought a one-pound box to her $15,000 loan interview. He started eating them during the meeting. Then he approved the loan and ordered about 200 pounds for his clients. Her chocolates are now made in a factory in North Salt Lake.
The recipes started with a fundraiser to build a church in South Dakota, where Marie made candy at her kitchen table. In 1972 she and her husband, George, opened their first Utah storefront in Bountiful. By 2007 there were eight stores from Ogden to Orem and a new 26,000 square foot factory, and the family put the company up for sale.
It stayed in the family. Marie's daughter Colene Wall owns it now with her husband, and their son Trevor Wall is the head cook. Another grandson, Tyson Wall, letters every lettered chocolate by hand. The company was founded in South Dakota, so Utah gets the factory and the headquarters, not the birthplace. The Mindy Mint filling is named for the founders' first grandchild, and other centers carry grandkids' names too. The banker never got a flavor.
Before Valentine's Day in 2024, the North Salt Lake factory was filling about 500 orders a day, shipped with a no-melt guarantee.
