Great Day! That’s how Chocolatier and owner of Lula’s Chocolates, Scott Lund, greets everyone in his path.  With his energetic stride and warm grin, Scott makes everyone’s day finer just by offering his good wishes.  And the good wishes are second only to the great chocolates being made in small, perfectly delectable batches at the Lula’s factory in Monterey, where Scott loves to pull out some of his recently cooled chocolates for the unexpected guest to savor.  “What’s your favorite?” he’ll ask.  “Light?  Dark?  How about a caramel, a crème, or a nut cluster?  Or what about our lavender truffle?”  Because Scott is absolutely passionate about delighting people with the fresh and heavenly chocolate pieces he creates, everyone who walks through the door at Lula’s is sure to leave with a chocolate-made smile and a new obsession.

Scott learned first hand the art of chocolate making from his grandmother, Lula, ho for thirty years made chocolates in Salt Lake City under the name of Mrs. Lund’s Personality Chocolates. Lula Lund was born in Cowley, Wyoming in 1901. During her teenage years, her Home Economics teacher boarded at the family home. This teacher taught Lula how to make confections in her kitchen after school. In 1945 Lula began selling her homemade confections. She developed a following among local wholesalers and retailers. By the time she was 70, she was making candies only for her friends and sold less than 200 pounds of candy a year.

In 1996, Lula’s grandson, Scott Lund, moved from Texas to Salt Lake City where she taught him how to make confections the home-fashioned way. “Confectionary is really about the marriage of chemistry and art,” says Scott.  “My grandmother understood the art of it.  She was meticulous with quantities in a recipe but said things like ‘now go ahead and stir it until it’s done.’”  According to Scott, she knew the feel of candy the way good cooks do in the kitchen. But to learn the precise chemistry of it, Scott enrolled in several confectionary classes, where he mastered the art of “building crystals,” which is the science of heating cream and sugar and then forming sugar crystals that are no larger than 30 microns.  At this level, the fondant center becomes exceptionally smooth and creamy, and the human mouth detects it as a wonderful ganache in flavors of vanilla, chocolate, mint, penuche, or raspberry. From the time of Grandma Lula’s death in 2000, Scott carried on the Lula’s tradition by making chocolate confections for holiday sales, family gifts, catered events, and corporate sales. Most notably, Lula’s provided chocolates for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremony events. The event was extremely successful and everyone fell in love with the hand dipped chocolates. And thus was born the idea:  move to a place on the coast where there’s “chocolate weather” year round, where locals will buy chocolates, and tourists will take them home and then devotedly reorder them on the internet.In 2004, Scott decided to relocate Lula’s to the Monterey Peninsula, a community that he had come to love during his teen years when his family lived in   In November of 2006, Lula’s Chocolates opened a factory in Ryan Ranch and in December of 2008, Lula’s first retail store opened at The Crossroads Shopping Village in Carmel.   The dream became a reality and Scott’s passion for Lula’s keeps growing as he seeks for new ways to please all chocolate lovers.

Honoring his grandmother’s traditional recipes and techniques, Scott has never forgotten the importance of using the very finest ingredients. His goal is to bring out the best in them and thus produce the finest chocolates.  He uses only whole nuts, slow roasting them for better flavor and crunch; he combines fresh dairy cream with pure cane sugar, stirring the magical liquid for an hour-and-a-half before mixing in additional fresh cream and butter to produce his famously buttery, delicious caramel.  It all started with Grandma Lula Lund’s recipes and formulations.  Now her kitchen-cooked confections are being reimagined for a new generation by her grandson, Scott, whose artistry results in to-die-for chocolates made in lovingly small, fabulously fresh batches.

Visitors/chocoholics are welcome to come purchase chocolates at the Lula’s production factory in Monterey or browse our online store. Look for them in your favorite upscale grocery stores, Carmel/Monterey boutiques, and fine local hotels. For store locations near you, click here. Lula’s Chocolates are the perfect accessory to parties, corporate events, weddings, or just the cozy night “in.”  Find them, try them, and experience fresh!