Criterion Chocolates in Eatontown offers taste from your childhood for almost a century

Susan Bloom

Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 5:06 AM6 min read

EATONTOWN - Growing up in Long Branch with an industrious spirit, Ron Boyadjian began working at nearly century-old Criterion Chocolates as a high school student.

More than 50 years later, Boyadjian now serves as co-owner of the third-generation, Eatontown-based company, along with Allenhurst resident George Karagias Jr., grandson of the company’s founder, and the two couldn’t be more dedicated to honoring their company’s iconic past while forging an exciting new future.

Founded by Louis Karagias in Asbury Park in 1929 as Criterion Candies, “our company established a factory in Eatontown in 1970 called Criterion Chocolates to supply our Asbury Park retail location(s),” said Boyadjian, 68, a Middletown resident. “In July 1971, right before my senior year of high school, I started working there cutting taffy, helping one of the owners cook batches, and assisting with other jobs.”

Following high school, Boyadjian went on to graduate from Georgetown University with a degree in business management and returned to work full-time at Criterion Chocolates at a managerial level.

Criterion Chocolates co-owners Ronald Boyadjian and George Karagias in their Eatontown store, a nearly century-old, third-generation purveyor of premier chocolates based in Eatontown. They sell a variety of chocolate, candy apples and taffy.

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Then owned by Louis’ sons, George Sr. and Demitri, along with a third partner, “the company’s third partner passed away in 1985 and Demitri left the business in 1989, leaving just George Sr. and myself to run the operation,” said Boyadjian, who had no ownership stake at that time. “However, in 1992, George Sr. brought myself, his son George Jr. (who had worked at the company throughout high school and college and came on-board full-time in 1986) and a third partner, Jim Samaras, in as owners.

"Jim ended up retiring at the beginning of the pandemic and George Jr. and I have been the sole co-owners of Criterion Chocolates since March 2020,” Boyadjian said.

'Tried-and-true recipes'

Supported by 17 full and part-time team members today, “we left Asbury Park in 1993, and, though we returned to Asbury Park in 2012, we closed that shop in 2016 and Eatontown is now our only location,” Boyadjian noted.

But while its footprint may have changed over its 93-year history, the menu of products has largely remained the same at the beloved company, which has been part of the fabric of the Jersey shore since the close of the Roaring Twenties.

Criterion Chocolates is a nearly century-old, third-generation purveyor of premier chocolates based in Eatontown. They sell a variety of chocolate, candy apples and taffy.

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“We offer over 100 everyday bulk items in milk, dark and white chocolate varieties, from simple chocolate pops on a stick to more complex almond butter crunch and everything in between, including vanilla buttercreams, plain and sea salt caramels, chocolate turtles with almonds, cashews or pecans, nut clusters, jellies, creams, nonpareils, chocolate-covered pretzels, coconut patties and much more,” Boyadjian said of confections that typically sell for either $17.95 or $19.95 a pound. “While we discontinued some boardwalk products over time, we never stopped making taffy items and continue to offer them year-round.”

These and an extensive selection of other products are available at the 1,200-square-foot retail shop that sits adjacent to their 7,200-square-foot manufacturing facility, but Criterion Chocolates also supplies bulk items to farm markets, drug stores and candy shops both locally and as far away as North Jersey and Long Island as well as pre-packaged items to such outlets as Joe Leone’s Italian Specialties in Point Pleasant, Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck and Dearborn Market in Holmdel.

“Though we don’t make chocolate — we buy it from a chocolate manufacturer, melt it down and work with it from there — we use top-quality milk and dark chocolate,” Boyadjian said. “We haven’t changed some of our tried-and-true recipes at all, and we’ve brought back some original processes while enhancing others.”

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When it comes to trends, “almond butter crunch is one of our biggest sellers and chocolate-covered graham crackers in both milk and dark versions are also extremely popular,” Boyadjian said. “We don’t necessarily hop on fads, but longer-term trends that we’ve worked into our line over the years include sugar-free products and sea salt caramels.”

In other trends, he added, “dark chocolate has grown in popularity over time, perhaps because of its publicized health benefits, and we’ve moved to some different packaging strategies, including smaller packages for customers who want to enjoy a treat without the guilt.”

Among challenges, Boyadjian said that pandemic-era supply chain issues made it difficult to get certain flavors and raw materials. In addition, like many businesses, “product costs and wages have all gone up and it’s also been hard to get people, so we’ve tried to remain flexible and make things more efficiently using less hours of labor.”

On a positive note, “we have a good relationship with some of our competitors and have helped each other at different times,” he said. “There’s a lot of diversity in the industry and we all have our niche.”

Since the pandemic, “I spend half of my time on production activities such as making products and tweaking our processes and the other half interacting with customers and developing new products, while George supports our product development and sales/distribution activities,” Boyadjian said.

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'Offering great memories and value'

Looking ahead, “we’re poised for a great holiday season on the retail, wholesale and corporate gift fronts,” he said. “We’ll be expanding our offering of candy platters starting at $25 that people can serve at parties or give as gifts and this year we’re offering a peppermint-stick taffy that features a different texture than our normal peppermint taffy; it’s a nostalgic item that people remember from their childhood.”

The company is also excited to reinvent classic products for today’s consumers. “For example, we’ve been ‘holiday-izing’ such products as our nonpareils by changing their seed colors to commemorate the holidays — e.g., red, green and white seeds for Christmas, brown, yellow and orange ones in the fall, etc.,” Boyadjian said. “And we recently added a new variety of chocolate turtle featuring broken pretzel pieces with sea salt on top that we call our ‘Sea Turtle,’ which is great for people who don’t like or can’t eat nuts.”

Chocolate turtles in the process of being made at Criterion Chocolates, a nearly century-old, third-generation purveyor of premier chocolates based in Eatontown. They sell a variety of chocolate, candy apples and taffy.

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As the company approaches its milestone 100th anniversary in just a few years, Boyadjian and Karagias take pride in the indelible mark their products have made on customers near and far.

“People grew up with us, love that taste and ship our products to others located all over the country to share them,” Boyadjian said. “We love hearing customers tell us that they used to go to our store in Asbury Park when they were kids. People have great memories of our brand and we look forward to seeing current customers someday become old-time customers who look back on and remember our products fondly.”

As for his favorite part of the job, “I enjoy finding new ways of delivering quality and freshness in an ever-evolving market,” said Boyadjian, whose own favorites include the company’s almond butter crunch and any of its peanut butter items. “I love the challenge of reinventing and always becoming better while offering great memories and value.”