By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JUNE 24, 2025 | There’s a new state-of-the-art glass-fronted fine chocolate factory and retail store in Suwanee, and there’s nothing else like it in the United States. It’s called Bitzel’s chocolate, which was started in January 2024. The company has outgrown its 7,000 square foot plant and is seeking as much as 50,000 square feet of space for expansion.
It all got started when Ray Bitzel, the company president, was told that his life as a top executive was too stressful, his blood pressure was off the charts, and he needed to change jobs. Since his hobby was fine chocolate, he jumped into the business whole hog.
Bitzel is a native of Huntington, Indiana, a 1994 graduate of the Naval Academy, and a mechanical engineer. He had lived in foreign nations, working for major corporations, such as General Motors, Norton Group, Wheelabrator, and for the last seven years as president of Hitachi Construction. “I managed the growth of companies for private equity firms, to grow and acquire and sell off to someone else.”
His family has lived in Georgia at Woodstock and Newnan before his current home in Buford. “We have moved 14 times in 21 years. We now consider Georgia home.”
Bitzel and his wife, Yolanda, have two girls, Natalie, 20, at Gwinnett Tech, and Hydyn, 15, as sophomore at Buford High.
He finds Georgia a great place for business, with a good work force. He got major help from Nick Masino and Partnership Gwinnett, especially from Andrew Hickey. He also sings the praises of Mayor Jimmy Burnette and officials in Suwanee, who helped him jump bureaucratic fences when building his factory, requiring six different permits.
Bitzel has 14 employees, but can anticipate as many as 45 in a larger plant. His sales are 98 percent to corporate clients, from amusements and hospitality firms, food service, transportation (Delta Air and Emirates), to sports and entertainment (Braves, Falcons, etc.) “Where else can you go if you need 100,000 chocolate baseballs quickly?” he asks. “We produce fast and at a lower cost with our specialized processes.”
He says: “We offer printing on chocolate, with personalized custom flavor, shape, packaging and design, all done in-house using imported highly efficient Italian machinery to hold down costs. All tell me they have never seen a place like ours, where we can move fast to serve our customers.”
First, beans are roasted in this machine.
Bitzels offers chocolates from truffles and bonbons to caramels, filled bars, and innovations like caramel tomahawks for the Braves. The retail store also produces several flavors of soft served churned gelato with intensive flavors, never hard frozen.
Bitzel empties the raw beans, from his own farms in Ecuador and Uganda, into special machinery, and starts roasting. Processing the product finer and finer in 36 hours, it becomes high-class chocolate. There is constant checking to ensure high quality. “That’s why we have no sprinkler system in our building, for just a few drops of water could destroy lots of dollars of chocolate.”
In Europe about 18 percent of chocolate is cocoa solids, and 20 percent is cocoa butter. Popular chocolates (Hershey, Reece, Mars), include added oils and other fillers, which means chocolate of lower quality, which alters the taste.
Bitzel adds: “Chocolate is fun. You have to pay constant attention. I can’t answer emails when working on a vat of chocolate. I love the technical part of chocolate-making and the science behind it. It’s like a fine Swiss watch, in that you have so many components, which are so precise and you must have them exactly right.”
Bitzel’s address is 454 Northolt Parkway in Suwanee and is open Wednesdays through Sundays.
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