Chugach Chocolates Successfully Increased Production

Chugach Chocolates makes chocolate bars and other chocolate products with local Alaskan flavors. Located in Anchorage, Alaska, the company has four employees and is owned by a husband and wife team.

Chugach Chocolates purchased a flow packaging machine, which would increase packaging production from 90 bars an hour to up to 90 per minute. However, certain flavors of the bars would not work with their machine, and there was no easy explanation as to why. The thought of locating and engaging a specialist within Alaska that had the specific expertise of working on packaging machines, and would be willing to help a small business, would have been challenging and time-consuming. The Alaska MEP, part of the MEP National Network™, was able to identify a specialist, who was in the chocolate factory within a week.   

The manufacturing specialist engaged by Alaska MEP provided the most likely reasoning for Chugach's issues, which, after further research, was the cause. Chugach was then able to rectify the issue and start using their machine for all the company's chocolate bar flavors. The Alaska MEP also made other suggestions of best practices that the company had not considered that proved to be beneficial. Additionally, Alaska MEP found a mechanism to cover the cost of the specialist.