Dilettante owners sell but plan to expand

Dana and Brian Davenport, the owners of Dilettante Chocolates in Seattle, have sold the company to Kent-based Seattle Gourmet Foods in hopes of expanding and adding to their product mix.

Dilettante will keep its name and locations, including the original shop opened in 1977 on Capitol Hill. It also plans to continue selling chocolate-covered dried fruit through Costco, Wal-Mart and Trader Joe's nationwide.

"We can't meet the demand fast enough," said Dana Davenport, who founded Dilettante using family recipes from a grand-uncle who was a master confectioner to the czar of Russia.

Davenport is excited about expanding Dilettante's products to include pastries, which he plans to make based on recipes from that uncle, Julius Franzen.

"I'm at a crossroads of being able to fulfill my full, crazy potential," Davenport said. He and his brother, who also conducts the Federal Way Symphony, will remain executives of the company.

Dilettante makes chocolate-dipped dried fruit in Rainier Valley. It makes hand-dipped chocolates and roasts coffee at a Central Area location that last year was converted into a Mocha Cafe selling candy and coffee drinks. Other retail locations are in downtown Seattle, Kent, Bellevue and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Seattle Gourmet Foods does not plan any layoffs as a result of the acquisition, the largest since that company was formed in 1993 to continue production of Frango Mints when Frederick & Nelson department stores went out of business.

Together, the newly combined company will have about 150 employees in the low season and more than 300 around Christmas, said Dave Taylor, who owns Seattle Gourmet Foods with his wife, Kathleen. Terms of the Dilettante acquisition were not disclosed.

Seattle Gourmet Foods no longer makes Frango Mints, but it has acquired other food businesses, including Maury Island Farms Premium Preserves, Paradise Farms Hawaiian Candies and Buckeye Beans and Herbs Soup.

Its products are made at a plant in Kent and sold under the brand names of the companies from which they originated. Taylor said he will keep Dilettante's manufacturing operations separate for the foreseeable future.

He had spoken with the Davenports for more than a year about buying Dilettante, and the plan is to "grow as aggressively as we realistically can."

Mostly, Taylor plans to let the successful chocolate company be itself, he said. "You'd be foolish to mess with it, other than to grow it," Taylor said.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com