Coralville Bochner Chocolates now closed

CORALVILLE - Bochner Chocolates in Coralville is officially closed.

The chocolate shop that had been located at 2445 Second St. Unit 2 in Coralville closed on May 23.

St. Louis-based Bissinger's Handcrafted Chocolatier acquired Bochner Chocolates at the end of 2012 in part because of the equipment owner Eric Bochner had in his facility, said Tim Petron, chief operating officer for Bissinger's Chocolatier.

"We understood the loyalty that the Bochner Chocolates store had and so we decided to keep that store open under the Bochner Chocolates name," Petron said. "We appreciate the support that we've had but the amount of cost to keep that store up and running does not allow us to keep it open.

"It is an unfortunate reality that we decided to close that location."

The closure of the Coralville store will mean the loss of its one full-time employee.

"It was the sole business underneath the Bochner brand," Petron said. "We're very proud of our product. We don't want to ever put ourselves in a position where we can't serve our product. At the current moment, the Bochner brand is not something that we are going to continue to develop."

Petron said Bissinger's was looking to consolidate its operations. Bissinger's will eventually close the Iowa City production plant and shift manufacturing to St. Louis, Petron said.

The plant will close when the building in St. Louis is ready, he said. He did not have an exact closure date.

The closure will mean the loss of a dozen full-time employees. Petron said he originally considered transferring the employees to St. Louis.

"The last thing I would ever want to do is transfer people when I can't provide them job security," he said.

The Bissinger brand is a national one. Chocolates can be found at Whole Foods Markets as well as Neiman Marcus stores, Petron said.