When the Wilbur Chocolate factory in Lititz stopped making chocolate in January 2016, its machinery stayed behind for a few more months. Then, in August 2016, the contents of the plant went up for sale in a two-day online auction of more than 1,000 lots.
The sale offered a chance to own a piece of local industrial history that, as one observer put it, would not melt in your hands.
What was for sale
The auction was run by NRI Industrial Sales, a company that specializes in liquidating manufacturing plants. Its catalog included three chocolate production lines, a dry grind system, electrical equipment, motors and controls, power tools and a long list of smaller items.
The plant, owned at the time by Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate, had produced chocolate liquor, the ground cocoa paste that is the base of finished chocolate, right up until it closed.
The auction company said it was deliberately aiming part of the sale at the local community. Alongside large industrial machinery, the lots included tool cabinets, desks, forklifts, janitorial equipment and dumpsters, items that small businesses and individual buyers in Lancaster County could use.
Why industrial auctions happen
When a large manufacturer closes a plant, equipment that is not moved to another site is usually sold. Specialized lines can go to other food producers in the U.S. or overseas, while general equipment is often bought by local contractors, farms and shops. Online auctions widened the pool of bidders, letting companies around the world bid on a chocolate line in Lititz without traveling.
Clearing the building was also a step toward selling the property. An empty, stripped plant is easier to market to developers, and that is what happened next.
From factory to hotel
Oak Tree Development Group announced plans for the site in May 2017 and completed its purchase of the roughly 11-acre property for $2.25 million in January 2018. The historic brick factory was converted into The Wilbur Lititz, a 74-room Tapestry Collection by Hilton hotel that opened at 50 N. Broad St. in September 2019, with a restaurant, a market and condominiums. Apartments and a senior living community were built on other parts of the property.
The Wilbur Chocolate retail store, which had operated in the factory building, moved to 45 N. Broad St. in October 2016 and continues to sell Wilbur Buds and other candy.
A town’s reaction
For many residents, the auction was the moment the closing felt final. The factory had been part of daily life for generations: the smell of roasting cocoa over Lititz Springs Park, the trucks on North Broad Street, the shift workers at lunch downtown. Seeing the lines that made Wilbur chocolate listed as numbered lots, with opening bids, was hard for former employees and their families.
It also made clear how much of Lititz’s tourism identity depended on what happened next. Downtown merchants had long counted on the chocolate factory and store to bring visitors, and many worried about an empty landmark at the north end of the business district. The quick redevelopment that followed eased those fears.
For background on the closing itself, read our restored story The Day Lititz Learned the Wilbur Chocolate Factory Would Close.
If you bought something
Did you take home a piece of Wilbur at the auction, from a mixing kettle to a filing cabinet? Our newsroom would like to hear what you bought and what you did with it. Send a note and a photo through the Contact page, and we may feature it in a future story on the factory’s afterlife.
More business coverage from Lititz and northern Lancaster County is in our Business section.