Charlie Frank is busy rolling out a new candy bar in time for Valentine’s Day, introducing his existing candy bars to new customers around the country and making sure his extravagant confections are presented and sold the way they should be: enthusiastically and quickly, to capitalize on their freshness.

As a managing partner of Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory - the latest addition to the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses - Frank is a busy man who makes his candy bars, slab-style, in a narrow workshop crammed with vats of cocoa and sugar, racks of trays and chocolate enrobing and tempering machines. He slices and samples his creations on a butcher block table. A huge U.S. map pinpoints the regions where the bars are sold. A plank of a desk sits in the corner, underneath a framed Candy Land game board.

Next door is Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Creamery, Coffee Company and wedding cake showroom - all part of Zingerman’s Southside, an office park off South State Street.

When sales reach a half-million dollars, Frank, 43, says he’ll probably move to bigger quarters, but he doesn’t seem to mind the squeeze. The company forecasts $275,000 in sales by the end of the fiscal year in July, and so far, it may well reach the goal. By mid-January, sales hit the month-end goal of $17,000.

Frank’s plan to make candy full time was slow cooked over eight years while he managed the pastry department at the Bakehouse. When he was ready to devote his energy exclusively to the endeavor, he polished his vision and business acumen through Zingerman’s business development programs and came up with the money to invest. The Candy Manufactory opened in September. Frank operates independently, under the aegis of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which also includes Zingerman’s deli and Mail Order.

Frank’s roles include candymaker and marketer. He puts in long days at his workshop and finding new markets for the Zzang! Original, Ca$hew Cow, and What the Fudge bars. In mid-January, Frank and his partners traveled to San Francisco for the introduction of the Zzang! bars in 26 more Whole Foods stores and to attend a food trade show. Just a year ago, the company expanded into the national market. Whole Foods now carries the candy in four of its sales regions, as do specialty shops from Santa Barbara to Great Barrington, Mass.

“Part of the growth is teaching the public. We’re working on getting the Zzang! brand out,” Frank says. When he visits stores out of state, he helps them set up displays to maximize brand exposure. At a cost of around $5 each, the candy bars are more luxury item than snack.

While Frank didn’t do any special packaging for the holidays, he still made thousands of candy bars every day to fulfill existing orders. He plans to introduce a new wrap for Valentine’s Day to coincide with his fourth candy bar, the Wowza, an extravagantly dense treat that combines raspberry nougat, raspberry pectin and raspberry ganache wrapped in Ecuadoran dark chocolate, and to continue for Easter and beyond.

Frank rents equipment from the Bakehouse, which also uses his chocolate enrober for its moon pies. “It’s a synergistic relationship,” he says. “To be under the Bakehouse roof enables me to grow the business.”

Ari Weinzweig, a co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, said he’s “thrilled” with the Candy Manufactory, and emphasized that sales are but one measure of its success. He also looks at quality of the product and employee satisfaction.

“We’re totally happy with sales, but if they grow 5 percent, it’s fine. If they grow 20 percent, fine,” he says.

For more information on Zingerman's, check out AnnArbor.com's restaurant guide.

Julie Edgar is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com