Our Family
Growing up in his family home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Mom’s homemade toffee was always a special treat for Mark Graves. In 2006, after years of perfecting her secret family recipe, Mark’s mother, Karen Graves, turned her favorite hobby into her own home-based business. With the love and support of her husband, Griff, Chapel Hill Toffee made its official debut at A Southern Season, a specialty foods market in the heart of Chapel Hill.
In 2008, during the national financial crisis, Mark’s career in banking came to an abrupt end. He saw an opportunity and decided to join his mother in the kitchen and help her take her small business to the next level. Mark’s wife, Christy Graves, a fellow Chapel Hill native, soon joined the team to direct sales and marketing. Karen’s oldest son, Scott, joined in 2015 to lead distribution. In 2023, Mark's cousin (and fellow Tar Heel), Morgan Clark, came on board as the newest member in the family business!
Karen’s husband, Griff Graves, was the first and biggest fan of the toffee and, after his unexpected passing, Griff’s Toffee was launched as the national brand of KLG Candies, LLC to honor his memory and all of the support he provided in getting the family business off the ground.
While Chapel Hill Toffee and Griff’s Toffee have quickly expanded across the country, our toffee is still lovingly handcrafted in the place where it all began, “The Southern Part of Heaven.”
We are proud to make a donation from the sale of every box of toffee to Dina’s Dynasty Ovarian Cancer Fund in memory of Christy’s mom and Mark’s mother-in-law, Dina Bray.
About Griff
While our story begins in North Carolina where we are locally known as Chapel Hill Toffee, Karen’s husband, Griff Graves, was the first and biggest fan of her toffee. After his unexpected passing, we launched Griff’s Toffee in 2018 as the national brand of KLG Candies, LLC. Through Griff's Toffee, we are able to honor his memory and all of the support he provided in getting our family business off the ground.
We're honored to carry on his legacy and thrilled to have earned both a Platinum and Bronze Specialty Food Association’s sofi™ Award for our Griff's Coffee Toffee - we know he would be so proud!
Our Toffee
Our toffee begins with a layer of traditional English toffee spread thin and cut by hand into bite-sized squares. Each piece is coated on both sides with a top-secret blend of dark chocolates. The smooth layers are finished off with the sprinkling of pecans that gives our toffee its iconic look and distinctive southern twist!
Dark Chocolate
Our toffee is coated with a precise blend of dark chocolates originally formulated in our home kitchen. Our unique blend perfectly highlights the buttery sweetness of the toffee center and balances the nutty flavor of the pecan finish!
Pecans
We incorporate pecans throughout our toffee to give it a crispy texture and memorable nutty flavor. We also give our candy a light sprinkling of chopped pecans as the finishing touch that gives our pecan toffee it’s iconic look!
Espresso
Our Griff’s Coffee Toffee builds on our original recipe by adding espresso into the mix for a unique, one of a kind twist! We believe that the espresso provides an excellent counter point to the sweet toffee to create a perfectly balanced flavor combination!
