Chantelle Gorham: Young Entrepreneur Award Winner, Levack.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: A Decade of Honouring Achievements

Chantelle Gorham refuses to stick to conventional recipes, be it in her thriving fudge business, or her own career.

The 32-year-old owner of the Northwest Fudge Factory has taken the road less traveled throughout most of the last 10 years. From the Sudbury police force to her current home-grown factory business in Levack, Gorham has led a swath of community projects and fund raising events, not to mention some national accolades, several entries in the Guinness Book of World Records, and now a 2007 Influential Women's Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the northeast.

Despite the lack of a business background and bank loans, Gorham has taken her fudge company from its humble beginnings as a side project to a full-fledged fudge wholesaling company. It is precisely this "ground up" approach that gives this cop-turned-candy-maker the most pride, as her persistence and passion have driven her success.

"You couldn't look to another business in the area and see what they were doing to get any hints," she says. "It seems everything I was doing was untested, and I've definitely had a lot of failures, and I think that was about the only way I could grow as a business."

Gorham's unconventional career path began in 1998, after obtaining her English degree. She joined the Sudbury Police Service force as a constable, primarily to prove to herself that she could do it.

After a few years on the force, she purchased the Northwest Trading Company in Espanola with her brother, Vern, in 2001, selling a variety of items such as souvenirs and home decor. After working both jobs simultaneously for a year, she discovered the sales of fudge using pre-made mix were strong enough to support an independent business, and the Northwest Fudge Factory was born.

However, pre-made recipes were not sufficiently cost-competitive, and after handing in her gun and badge, she spent the next year devising her own fudge concoctions. "Something had to give. I liked policing, but the business was doing so well that it either had to move forward or not at all. It was a natural choice, as it allowed me to be creative."

This led to the creation of nearly 100 new recipes including her famed cream-and-butter style fudge. Twenty five other flavours make up the core of her business. Seasonally-themed favorites such as pumpkin pie fudge and blueberries-and-cream are made by special request, along with branded fudge cornerstones for Dalron Construction Limited.

Distributors move her...