The organization was established by and is named after Italian chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli, who, in the wake of working in South America, moved to California. The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was consolidated in 1852, and is the third-most seasoned chocolate organization in the United States, after Baker's Chocolate and Whitman's.
Ghirardelli is one of only a handful few chocolate organizations in the United States to control each part of its chocolate producing process,rejecting up to 40% of the cocoa seeds sent keeping in mind the end goal to choose what the organization calls the "most astounding quality" seeds. The organization then dishes the cocoa seeds in-house by evacuating the external shell on the seed and cooking within the seed, or the nibs.The chocolate is then ground and refined until the drops are 19 micrometers in size.
Ghirardelli produces a few kinds of chocolate. The chocolate is sold in bar form or is cut up into squares and separately bundled. Chocolate assortments include:
- Milk chocolate.
- Milk chocolate with caramel filling.
- Milk chocolate with caramelized almonds.
- Milk chocolate with salt and almonds