Chocolate Inn/Taylor & Grant Resumes Normal Production Operations Two Months After Superstorm Sandy
Freeport, New York-based confectionary supplier Chocolate Inn/Taylor & Grant recently announced that after shipping the balance of its holiday orders, the company will resume its regular production schedule, effective January 1, 2013, for the first time since Superstorm Sandy struck their facility in October.
“I am proud of our team and proud that we are back in business after recovering from this once-in-a-lifetime storm,” said David Miller, the company's president. “Sandy dumped five feet of salt water into our facility and, in the process, destroyed our inventory, equipment and a substantial number of pre-built holiday orders."
Starting October 31, the Chocolate Inn/Taylor & Grant team immediately went back to work to begin an exhaustive company-wide clean-up effort to get the facility production-ready for the holiday season.
The remediation process involved ensuring the facility was “food-safe”, investigating, refurbishing, remediating and replacing equipment, and restocking a large majority of the company’s inventory. After 19 days, Chocolate Inn/Taylor & Grant was ready to resume shipping customer orders.
“The efforts our team expended were superhuman,” said Adam Cotumaccio, Chocolate Inn/Taylor & Grant's chief operating officer. “While many other local companies shut down, we rallied and got ourselves back on our feet.”
Despite the efforts of the team, the production equipment did not always perform during the frenetic holiday season. This impacted the accuracy of Chocolate Inn/Taylor & Grant's communications with customers—which was particularly frustrating for an award-winning customer service team.
“The most important thing to us was trying to communicate accurately and in a timely manner with our customers, but unfortunately this was no easy task,” said Miller. “The corrosive salt-water damage and the subsequent after-effects caused by the ‘storm of the century’ affected the business at hand to a degree that made this challenging towards the definitive accuracy we aspired.”
“I cannot wait to get back to business and to servicing our customers,” added Miller. “I have spent my life in this business; I never want to disappoint our customers, and I look forward to rebuilding and re-developing our relationships. We have a dynamite team and are excited to deliver for our customers in the New Year.”
For more information, visit www.chocolateinn.com.