Pendleton Woolen Mills is working with ALMA chocolates…

…to develop small-batch chocolates in a delightful co-branding. Beautiful Pendleton packaging encases delicious, intense and inventive confections made of Portland’s Woodblock chocolate, Netarts Bay sea salt, Hood River cherries, Oregon hazelnuts, Sundance Lavender Farm’s lavender and more.

These world-quality ingredients help bring the flavors of the Pacific Northwest to chocolates that perfectly express Pendleton’s commitment to excellence. ALMA’s Hannah Sullivan calls it the Oregon Flavors Collection,  and it’s available now at Pendleton’s retail store locations across America. We suggest you get yours soon, as these are disappearing as soon as we put them out.

Pendleton chocolates; isn’t this a dream come true?

If you’d like to understand why Pendleton chose ALMA to develop our chocolates, you should visit the ALMA store in Northeast Portland.

You can browse the chocolates, baked and frozen treats.

Your curiosity will be aroused and answered with a generous array of samples.

Make your choice and take a seat with a freshly crafted coffee or tea drink, or treat yourself to a drinking chocolate. Try the Thai Coconut Cup; soothing, enlivened with notes of coconut, but never overwhelming despite the fact that you are essentially drinking melted chocolate. Best of all, you can visit ALMA’s beautiful icons; poured of single-source chocolate and gilded with edible gold leaf. There’s one for everyone you know.

Sarah Hart and Hannah Sullivan, the mother and daughter team behind ALMA, bring a delightful pedigree to the work of creating Portland’s premiere chocolates.

Sarah is a former college instructor at the University of Oregon who repeatedly found herself drawn back to the world of fine food throughout her life. She worked at Papa Haydn  after relocating to Portland, and went on to L’auberge. Sarah has received awards and accolades for her work with ALMA; the 2014 Good Food Award for flavor and sustainability, the 2008 Rising Star Chocolatier Award, and more. She’s also a Cooking Light 2010 Taste Test Winner. Sarah named the business after her grandmother, Alma, who had a special gift for feeding people.

Sarah’s daughter, Hannah, was born in Eugene and raised in Portland. It’s only natural that she moved to Brooklyn, the Portland of the east coast, after she finished college. Hannah worked as a pastry chef, worked at Penguin publishing before settling in as a food editor for Bon Apetit magazine. Brooklyn is one of the birthplaces of the Maker Movement, with its grassroots commitment to local materials and serious craftsmanship. Hannah was especially interested in the rise of artisanal food makers. As she puts it, she thought, “Hey, I know one of those." She returned to Oregon in 2012 to join her mother in a transformation of ALMA that included opening a commercial kitchen to grow the wholesale side of the business.

The result? Bliss, really. Whatever it is chocolate does for the body and brain (and scientifically, it’s suspected to do wonderful things), ALMA chocolate succeeds completely. We couldn’t be prouder of this small but delicious collaboration.

 All photography in this post by Lauren Modica, copyright 2014. Usage rights retained by Pendleton Woolen Mills.