Cerreta Candy Company

Mmmm.. chocolate in the morning.  I can’t think of a better way to start the day.

My daughter was off for President’s Day, so we decided to take a tour of the Cerreta Candy Company.  Cerreta is a family-owned Phoenix based business.  They offer free tours Monday through Friday at 10AM and 1PM.

We arrived a little before 10AM.  Parking was a breeze.  This left us plenty of time to sign up for our tour.  The guided tour is free, but it offers two upgrade options.  One is a Chocolate Tasters tour ($5) where you get additional samples and the second is a VIP tour ($10) catered towards kids.  With VIP status, you go on the free guided tour, get additional candy samples of a taffy, marshmallow caramel and chocolate, plus you get to make a chocolate pizza at the end!  We were sold 🙂

I only bought one VIP pass.  One chocolate pizza for our house is enough.

The tour was fun and informative.  Cerreta has a replica of the chocolate machine that appeared on “I Love Lucy.”  The machine was making candy-coated marshmallows while we were there.  Of course, we got a taste!

Walking around this machine to get a close-up view was the best part of the tour.  We also got insight on how they make their famous French mints, where their chocolate comes from (apparently Cerreta’s own recipe manufactured by Guittard) and how they make caramel.

At the end of the tour, kids with VIP passes lined up at tables on the side of factory and made chocolate pizza.

Some words of advice if you plan on going:

• Bring a water bottle.  This candy is sweet!  After her first bite of marshmallow, Cam started begging for water.  They do have a water fountain, however you may not want to break away from the tour.
• Bring some healthy snacks for after the tour.  We brought apples which prevented the post-sugar crash nicely.
• If you need to use the restroom, make it very clear to your five-year-old that the chocolate pizza needs to remain in a horizontal position when she holds it.  Else, it will look like this:

Still tasty though 🙂

Cerreta Candy Company
5345 W. Glendale Ave
Glendale, AZ  85301
http://www.cerreta.com

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