Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company has been a subsidiary of Lindt & Sprüngli , Switzerland , since January 1998 .
The Ghirardelli company was founded on June 18, 1852 in San Francisco , California by the Italian chocolatier Domingo Ghirardelli after his first branch in Stockton (California) . His tent shops burned down one after the other a short time later, so that in September of the same year he firmly established himself with Cairo Coffee House in San Francisco . This made the company the second oldest chocolate factory in the USA (only "Baker's Chocolate", founded in Massachusetts in 1780, is older). Ghirardelli became the largest independent chocolate brand in the United States . In their hometown of San Francisco, the company built the “Cocoa Building” (1900), the “Chocolate and Mustard Building” (1911), a power station (1915) and a clock tower and apartment building (1916).