By Jennifer Crain
Jennifer Kassel and her brother, Jeff Schofield, have been helping with the family business since the 1990s. Their parents, Sue and Mike Schofield, bought a candy business in Centralia in 1994 and started making their own mints, pouring and foil-wrapping each one by hand.
Chehalis Mints, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary this summer, is still entirely family run. Kassel says her mother and brother pour the chocolates, Jeff hand wraps most of them himself, and she manages much of the packaging. Other family members pitch in, too, making deliveries and pinch-hitting during the heavy holiday seasons. Even the grandchildren help.
“My kids have learned a lot,” she says. “We all work together.”
The location of their business was fortuitous. Though they make the candies out of their commercial-grade kitchen in Centralia, the company is named for its mint source. I.P. Callison and Sons, a century-old, worldwide supplier of essential mint oil used in the confectionary and cosmetics industries, is located in nearby Chehalis.
A representative from I.P. Callison says Chehalis Mints uses a confectionary-grade peppermint blend oil made from Pacific Northwest mints. Though I.P. Callison sources mint from multiple places around the globe, much of the mint is grown in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
Dave Jekel, co-owner of Spud’s Produce Market, says driving through downtown Chehalis, you can smell the mint from the car, a fact not lost on someone who loves butter mints as much as he does.
“The meltaways remind me of my grandma, who used to have stuff out like that all the time,” he says. “It reminds me of being a kid.”
Kassel says the butter mints are made of high-grade white chocolate mixed with peppermint oil. The company also sells milk and dark chocolates, often poured into shapes that go along with the seasons. For Valentine’s Day their chocolates are shaped like hearts and lips, wrapped in red, pink, silver, lavender, and orchid colored foils.
But the butter mints, often molded into the shape of mint leaves, make up the majority of their business. Kassel says the familiar bags of pastel candies make up between 50-60% of their total sales.
When Chehalis Mints started, Sue Schofield says they produced around 5,000 pounds of candy per year. That number is now closer to 20,000 pounds annually, sold in stores around the region, as far north as Kirkland. Most visibly, the family sells out of a booth at the Olympia Farmers Market.
Though the market is open on Saturdays throughout the winter this year, Kassel says the family will take a break after February 8 to regroup before returning in the spring. She says they’re grateful for stores such as Spud’s, that carry their products year-round.
“We’ve always heard really good things from customers who go there,” Kassel says of the neighborhood market, which opened its doors in 2012. “They always seem really friendly. And that’s what we appreciate – to have people like that who represent us.”
She adds that it’s a thrill, even all these years into their business, to see someone going home with a bag of their handmade mints.
“It’s been fun to watch it grow and be part of the community. It always amazes me to go into a store and see our product in somebody’s arms,” she says.
For his part, Dave says they carry Chehalis Mints because he knew the candies were a beloved part of the community. In fact, theirs were the first sweets in the store.
He says the seasonal chocolates sell out quickly. Last weekend, one customer brought seven bags up to the cash register.
That doesn’t mean they’re in danger of running out for Valentine’s Day, though. Jekel says he already has an extra-large order in for the coming week.
2828 Capitol Boulevard in Olympia
360-915-9763
