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Doubling down on chocolate bunnies

A Maine-based business has ramped up Easter production, keeping its employees at work and donating unsold chocolate to local nonprofits.

Doubling down on chocolate bunnies
Melissa Mullen Photography

Businesses across the country are struggling to keep employees on the payroll. At Portland, Maine-based chocolatier and truffle maker Dean’s Sweets, however, workers have been able to keep working some hours — even as the business faces a precipitous drop in sales.

“We’re down 75%, as a guess,” co-founder Kristin Thalheimer Bingham told “Marketplace.”

The company traditionally makes chocolate bunnies for the Easter holiday. This year, Thalheimer Bingham and her husband Dean decided their employees should make “as many as they possibly can.” Sustained production has allowed Dean’s Sweets to keep its employees working.

The company is donating unsold bunnies locally.

“Giving away these bunnies is just a tiny little thing, we realize that, but it is what we can do to be a part of … investing in our future as a business, to invest in our staff, to invest in our community,” Thalheimer Bingham said. “So we’re really happy about that.”

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