Finn Krause
Krause’s Chocolates
Krause’s Chocolates is a family business – how did your family start making chocolate?
My great-grandfather, Alfred Krause, came to America in the 1920s, and he met and married his wife, Hannah. They started their business with a gas station convenience store in Long Island and Wyandanch. They would make sweets, baked goods, confections, and chocolates on the side. The gas station closed in World War II because it was on the same road as an airplane factory, and it was a security risk. They had to move, and they said, “People love our candy, let’s open a candy store.” They moved away from baked goods and sold chocolate exclusively. A lot of what we sell today is almost identical to their recipes from 1929. And now we have locations in Albany, Rhinebeck, New Paltz and Saugerties.
What are your specialties?
Our most popular items are our caramels. Even though you can get caramel anywhere, we have a very old-fashioned, distinct recipe because it’s a lot chewier than your average caramel and has a very rich flavor. We have sea salt caramels and various nut toppers: pecan, cashew, and honey roasted peanut. And marshmallow caramel with graham crackers.
We also have a pretty unique hazelnut truffle, and we sell a lot of peanut butter flavors. We have your standard peanut butter cup, a peanut butter meltaway (whipped peanut butter), and a peanut butter log, which is similar to a Butterfinger. It’s layers of crunchy peanut butter flakes and rolled in toasted coconut, and dipped in chocolate.
Technology has advanced drastically since Krause’s opening decades ago. How does technology play a role in chocolate making?
Our chocolate production is very traditional. A lot of the machines we have are the same ones my grandpa and great-grandpa used. These machines are family heirlooms. A bunch of the equipment is older than I am.
Technology really affects the storefront side of it. Part of our success is being able to ship our products. Having a website and online storefront is a basic requirement for any business. We’re always working on the automation of our inventory, label printing, and things like that.
But production-wise, we really try to keep it the same. We still hand-dip, which is not what I see in most candy stores. It definitely isn’t the most efficient way to do it. I see other places using a conveyor belt, but hand dipping gives our chocolate a very unique look and also makes the chocolate layer thicker than you’d get with a conveyor belt. With a belt, you have to use lower viscosity chocolate because the machines can’t handle it. We think our thicker coatings are very important.
Where do you source your raw materials from? How do you ensure top quality?
I think a big part of our success is that we’ve always really focused on taste and affordability. We want to deliver handmade, local chocolate products at a decent price point. We retaste our chocolate constantly, and if we don’t like the way it tastes, we’ll change distributors. Basically, our tongues and taste buds have been running the show. I’m thankful every day for the work we do because it’s a good business to be in, and it’s nice to be in the business of making people happy.
We’ve always used Peter’s Chocolate. We’ve had good luck with Peter’s. They were originally from Switzerland, but now it’s run by Cargill, which is based in the US. Daniel Peter is the founder of the company. He was the original inventor of milk chocolate. He made the first shelf-stable milk chocolate, and he was friends with Henry Nestle, who was the founder of Nestle.
Why do you think Krause’s Chocolates has been voted the Hudson Valley’s Best Chocolates/Candy store for almost 20 years?
I think it has a lot to do with taste. I think there’s prettier candy out there. I think ours looks good, of course, but there’s gourmet, higher-class, prettier stuff. But, I have not had much that tastes better than ours. We don’t want to charge you more than we have to for the product. We want it to be affordable. I never want somebody to come in and not be able to get anything. We struggle with that as prices of our ingredients increase, especially chocolate lately has been going through the roof. But we weather those storms, and we try and keep it so that people can get it. We never want to compromise on the taste and price point, it’s about the balance.
What do you recommend for gifts? What are your personal favorites?
When you come in, you have to get something from the case. Make your own boxes is our bread and butter. You can get a box with caramels and peanut butter chocolates. It’s unbeatable, really. I like our toasted coconut dipped in chocolate. I wasn’t a coconut guy, but toasted coconut changed my perspective. It’s a great consistency, crunchy and sweet with chocolate. I’m also a big fan of chocolate truffles. The raspberry truffle, especially. My all-time personal favorite is the chocolate mousse nougat.
Do you experiment with new trends or stick with classic recipes?
We don’t follow trends too much. It can be hard to get into trends because it may or may not be a hit with your clientele. It’s a lot to invest in, to figure out a recipe, just for the trend to end. We only do trendy stuff if we want to try it and if it’s something that interests us. We aren’t going to try every trend. For us, it’s about doing what we do well. We’ve been doing that for almost 100 years. We want to keep that standard of good quality and flavor that people expect.
How do you stay on top of seasonal offerings? (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc.)
It’s impossible to gauge how much we’re going to sell. How much people are going to want, but we have to make our best estimates and best guesses. It’s a lot of planning and prep work. We start working on Christmas in the fall. And then when we’re really busy in the store for Christmas, we have to be planning for Valentine’s Day. And during Valentine’s Day we’re planning for Easter. So, it’s just planning, planning and more planning all throughout the year.
How do you manage production for all of your locations?
We’re cooking constantly. Everything that’s in New Paltz and Rhinebeck, we make in Saugerties and send there. That’s how our production works, because those storefronts don’t have a kitchen attached to them, because we don’t have space for it. My brother, Ian, runs the Albany location, and they make all of their own inventory.
Do you have any plans to open other locations in the future?
We have a lot on our plates. We’ve always kicked around the idea of opening other locations, as a pipe dream. We’ve talked about a New York City location. It’s a big, untapped market, and it would be like returning to our roots because we’re from Long Island. We talked about a Cape Cod location or some beachfront place to balance our business out because candy stores really slow down in the summer. That’s why we sell ice cream during the summer.
We’re pretty content for now. Those are some really long-term plans. At the end of the day, we’re always family-run, family-owned. I’m a fourth-generation chocolate maker, and so is my brother, and we take pride in that. We hope to have fifth, sixth, and seventh generations down the road. It’s important for us to keep it in the family and never lose sight of why we’re doing this.
May, 2025
