Sweet success and the private 250 list: Denver family churns out chocolate.

• Author: Finman, Judy

THROUGH 19 YEARS IN business, the Szyliowicz family of Denver, four chocolate-lovers who trained together with a world-class chocolatier in Paris, have evolved their private small business from a home-based candy maker to a worldwide brand of their own syrups and drink mixes.

Mont Blanc Gourmet Hot Cocoa, which recently moved from Glendale to south Denver, is a chocolate manufacturer without a chocolate factory.

Yet it supplies gourmet chocolate syrups, cocoas and frozen drink mixes to such customers as the Cheesecake Factory, Dunkin' Donuts, Peaberry Coffee, Whole Foods Markets, Wild Oats Markets and other shops around the globe.

Along the way the Szyliowicz family--father Joe; mother Irene; son Michael; and daughter Data--have tried several variations on the chocolate theme, from making chocolate candies to wholesale cocoa powders.

Today, Mont Blanc's No. 1 product is chocolate syrup, and the Szyliowiczes claim to be the largest syrup company in Colorado.

"In business you have to be flexible and always on the lookout for trends, willing to take risks and willing to make changes," says Irene Szyliowicz, 67, the president of Mont Blanc Gourmet.

This year promises to be the best ever for Mont Blanc. Sales thus far are double last years revenues of $900,000. Based on those sales, the company ranks 210 on the ColoradoBiz annual list of Top 250 Private Companies in Colorado. Projected revenues for 2003 are $2.6 million.

Growth and staying power over 19 years has been a family tradition. Irene and son Michael, 39, whose title is chocolatier, run the company.

Joe, 71, a professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, says that he and Dara, 37. assistant professor at the Rawls School of Business at Texas Tech University, are on the fringes of the business. They get involved mainly in strategic matters, like when Mont Blanc considers a new product line, a customer issue, or a new strategic direction.

BEYOND LOCAL

Chocolate is not a big industry in Colorado, but Mont Blanc has found a niche in the high-quality chocolate market--supplying drink-making products to coffee shops, cafes, espresso bars and restaurants.

Its chocolate is all natural, and the company imports all its cocoa powder from Europe. Ninety-five percent of Mont Blanc's business is done outside of Colorado, nationally and internationally in Canada, Mexico, England, France, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Korea.

But Colorado figures heavily in the...