From Dolphins and Deserts to Chocolates and Celebrations
We're turning 8 years old - the tiny chocolate business that keeps on growing!
Hello everyone, especially our 2 new subscribers, thanks Margo and Cheryl-Ann!! This is actually a BIG week for our little chocolate business because we turned eight years old!! Wow, what started as something very simple has grown quite complex so we wanted to take this week to celebrate what’s been accomplished and supported by so many of you as we look ahead to the future. I also thought it would be fun to share a bit more about how it all started and evolved.
Many people that know me, as Jason puts it - “the Colleen of Colleen’s Chocolates," don't know that in my first career I was a Marine Mammal Trainer for 18 years. When they find out, they are often shocked, “What? You were a dolphin trainer for almost 2 decades?!?!” they’ll exclaim, I guess because it is so far from my current chocolatey obsession of making delicious treats and hosting tasting experiences to share them with my peeps, customers, family, and superfans (more on them later). Yep, this girl grew up on the prairies in Edmonton, AB, Canada and started working in “that giant mall” training 4 beautiful dolphins and some rascally penguins but she soon moved on to other facilities in 3 more countries, while working with all kinds of animals (mostly marine cetaceans) before circling back home to wind up working with chocolate?!
So many stories! As I worked with the largest (Killer Whales) and the smallest (Saw-whet owls) plus a host of animals in between, I think all the animals captured my heart and some kept other parts of me (Ouch! Oh, the stories…). But most of my time was spent with Bottlenose Dolphins and I could never get enough. The most often question I get asked when people find out I worked with animals, especially dolphins, is, “Do you miss it?” Yes, I absolutely do! I miss ALL of the animals but I don’t miss most of the people - in the end it was the humans that wrecked it for me and so I left a career I loved.
What happened next? Well, after lollygagging for a while I wound up living part-time in Nevada - but in Boulder City not Las Vegas. But on one of countless, exhausting trips back and forth from Canada to the USA, I called my then boyfriend (just as I was cresting Scott Lake Hill and dropping into the gorgeous, expansive landscape at the start of the Bow Valley below) and said “I’m not coming back.” That was not met with a happy response but I was just done with going back and forth from my second home in Canmore, AB; traversing to Nevada every 6-8 weeks is a 3 day drive in case you’re wondering even though it was always with Chewy, the best travel companion dog anyone could ever have had the fortune to be with, and sometimes my kitties, too.
What about Canmore? I was in such a great small town community, working at a Nutters Health Food store as the Assistant Manager and thereby getting to try all the newest vegan foods, supplements, teas, and more as they hit the market. Yes, at that time I was still vegan [Editor’s Note: Fun fact: Dark chocolate is naturally Vegan! Shhhhh. Don’t tell them, they’ll just brag it up! JMC ] So many interesting people - I made fantastic, lifelong friends (Love you, Jim and Grace!!) and this is where the chocolate journey obsession really began as a career.
Oh, about chocolate, I should get two things out of the way first - growing up I loved,Loved,LOVED certain chocolate treats… Terry’s dark chocolate orange, Cherry Blossom, Reese Peanut Butter Cups, Pep peppermint patties, and of course Big Turk. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that as of today in 2024 I still eat Terry’s dark chocolate orange (whack and unwrap, yes please!) and Big Turk! Some people fight me on these [Editor’s Note: Ya. Chocolate and Orange - HARD NO! Big Turk? It tastes of rubber and rose water! Ack. JMC] but they are awesome and still made with real chocolate! Those others I can’t eat anymore as they’re full of garbage ingredients and palm oil now, blech!
Back to Canmore (the BEST place on earth to live! I should have never left!!), my nutritionist friend Sam owned a little store with another friend Joanne who happened to be a raw food chef. One day Sam started teaching a “Make Your Own Chocolate” class and it was a no brainer to sign up. I went home after the class totally jazzed at everything I had learned and immediately put my new skills to work. I made all sorts of chocolate bars that night and it occurred to me that I could also make the mint chocolate taste just like the Pep that I was craving (no idea when they were officially discontinued but give a shout out if you ever ate them?) The next day I was so excited to show Sam what I made mostly because I thought I was pretty clever for figuring out how to make fillings in a chocolate bar and her response was unexpected - “Wow, but I didn’t teach you any of this! Want to work for me?” I sure did! From that point on I would go in whenever she was low in stock and make all sorts of filled or flavoured chocolate bars for her to sell.
Now, dear readers, we’re going to start the “music montage" portion of the article because a lot of things happened in a short period of time. While working for Sam I got to the point where I realized I needed to learn more but didn’t know where to learn it. “University of YouTube” wasn’t a thing back then (this was around 2010) but I did somehow get tied in with the Light Cellar in Calgary, AB (Hey if you’re interested, cue up this podcast and check out this interview with Light Cellar’s owner Malcolm Saunders and hear how he was instrumental in helping me start my business.) and from that connection I learned about other big raw/vegan chefs and educators. This ended up being really fortunate for me because I got to do a discovery call with a very talented chef named Amy Levin (UK based and used to work for Gordon Ramsay) and she told me about Ecole Chocolat and this is where I went to Chocolate School - no really, it’s a thing! I took a Professional Chocolatier course and then a Master Chocolatier course plus a few others. I learned an incredible amount from them. Then what really solidified me starting my chocolate business happened right after finishing my Master Chocolatier course on Bowen Island, BC, Canada, when an amazing Chocolatier named Melissa Coppel, that I had admired for a while, announced she was offering her first ever “in person" course in…Las Vegas!
Whew, let’s slow it down again, end of music montage! Now, I knew I just had to be at that course so I messaged my friends who still lived there (Hi, Don and Darlene!) and asked if I could stay with them - and of course I could because they’re awesome! I booked everything and off I went! June 20, 2016 I was there with the Inaugural class of Melissa Coppel Atelier! I was a sponge and I learned so much - here we are 8 years later and I am still learning so much! Not only have I continued to learn from and be inspired by great chocolatiers like Melissa but also Andres Lara (who teaches out of her Atelier), Ramon Morato, and Luis Amado who has a home teaching school in Michigan, USA and teaches all over the world. And, now because Lifelong Learning is a Core Value of mine, I also teach my own classes and give chocolate experiences, both in person and online - and I love it! (Fun fact my first official Chocolate Tasting event was back in 2015!!!)
But wait?! How did those bonbons in Canmore evolve to Colleen’s Chocolates comfort collection of bars and custom experiences and creations?? Well first, when I started learning new techniques and styles, I really naively thought I would simply make tasty bonbons and then sell them all in beautiful custom boxes with custom packaging. Oh and use only single origin high percentage chocolate, and fill everything up with superfoods and love. Bahahahahahah! Yup, no! Making bonbons is not just a labour of love; it’s a massive amount of work and while I sooo love making them a few times of year (Christmas Advent Calendars, Easter) - all year long?! I couldn’t do it. Second, and more importantly, I learned really fast that the customers who were discovering me didn’t want high percentage chocolate and superfoods so much as they wanted caramel and peanuts and pistachios and tart cherries and crystalized ginger and flavours from childhood… just like me! These are my people, my peeps and I love you all!!
See, the realizations came as I started doing bigger markets and having only bonbons was a logistic drawback and so came along my comfort bars, because as I tell people “they are what I want to eat” and they give me comfort (maybe from a memory or from a delicious taste combination done RIGHT - Ginger bars, I’m looking at you! And Ulli and Margo are also looking at you!) and I hope everyone can enjoy them with me. Yes, I was worried at first that bars weren’t the same as bonbons and it would somehow diminish my business as a serious chocolatier but someone wise (ahem, Jason) said it wouldn’t and he was right. He was not right about the pricing though - he can tell that part of the story… [Editor’s Note again: Last one, I swear… She said I was right, that's all that’s important here. Move along.]
Surprisingly, for me, making chocolate bars was fun, and I could change them up so fast compared to the intricate work of individual hand-dipped or molded bonbons. Plus, I found this beautiful triangle design (below) that came in 2 sizes. I loved the freedom to make so many varieties for markets where they were a hit because people could buy the smaller size and try them before committing to the larger size. With bonbons there was always that purchasing hesitation that someone would buy an assorted box but then what if they only liked a few flavours - but the bars were an easy win! Overall, some bar flavours have come and gone for various reasons but the comfort collection has its regulars that aren’t going anywhere and there’s always experimenting with new ingredients that we source from local vendors and friends who provide us with fruits, berries, syrups and jams!
It is a bit more effort, but right from the start I made sure the kitchen was a no waste kitchen “no scraps left behind!” and that’s how our Phoenix bark and bars were born. In some ways the Phoenix process combines the complexity of bonbons with the simplicity of making bars and now our Gourmet barks. This is because as the stray pieces of leftover chocolates (scrapings, broken bars, batch leftovers that would normally get thrown out, etc) slowly liquify with all the ingredient bits and bobs in our giant stone grinder (for 18 or even 24 hours), a completely unique taste profile emerges that I can work on by touching it up, or drawing out certain flavours and even sometimes adding complementary ones for balance. Every batch honestly takes a lot of creativity to get right and sometimes the process can be frustrating. I even hated the name at first, which is funny because I do love a good phoenix - but Jason persisted on that and takes his reward in many, many free “tasting” samples!! :)
8 years of growth for our little company, with so much more support from people and customers like you, dear readers - have we said “thank you” recently?? Now that we’re having so much fun and success with personal Experiences and Tastings, we are doubly lucky enough to really connect and get to know you - we love that! We still have our favourite markets like Hand2Hand and the Banff Christmas Market (oh, plus sometimes the Banff and Canmore farmers’ markets - anything to get me back to the mountains!). We do a smattering of other events here and there (shoutout to the incredible employee appreciation event we were at with Alberta Blue Cross last week) and of course our #1 collaboration event - Devoured Book + Chocolate Event with Daisy Chain Book Co. That is a dream event working with Brandi, the owner of the bookstore and all of our incredible superfan peeps that come to all the events and support us so much <3. Like I said, for us the Experiences are where it’s at.
Making it as a small business for 8 years is an accomplishment because most small businesses don’t make it past year 1 much less year 5 so we’re doing pretty good. The work is also divided now so I don’t have to do everything - whew! I’m Master of the Chocolatiering and the Hostess with the Mostess of the chocolate experiences but my COOL Jason (Chief Operating Oompa Loompa) does all sorts of things like: website, orders, packaging, and delivery (and thieving, he’s a chocolate thief LOL [Editor’s Last note: SAMPLING!!] ) It really has been a group effort as my dad and Jason help with markets; my mom, dad, Jason’s mom, and sister Gillian have helped during our busiest times with packaging and we really appreciate the extra support when we’re busiest!
What does that mean for the future? Things like ingredients are getting tough to afford and even source. 2024 has been a strange year so far - in a previous article we wrote about the cocoa futures prices rising astronomically and making purchasing chocolate an absolute bear (check out that article here and the YouTube video here). We’ve had a drop in online sales but more Experiences, yay! We are purposefully doing less local outdoor markets dates but we have booked more Christmas markets. We worked all of January when usually we don’t work at all then, but people wanted Experiences and that is my happy place so I was glad to do them. I would say the biggest change is that after 5.5 years in the same windowless basement church kitchen we’re now at our own house in our own commercial kitchen that we set up downstairs and I can watch outside all day long while working. Plus, my dad and I built a gorgeous Tasting Room for people to come and enjoy all the variety of Tasting events and Experiences we offer and that has been a gamechanger for sure. So we’re adapting and building towards the future for sure.
What will the next 8 years bring? I am not sure but we’ll definitely be continuing to focus on the Experiences and possibly some bigger events. I have a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) to do a live event in front of thousands of people telling a simple and yet incredibly complicated story of chocolate. I need to figure out how to make that happen and yes I really do love speaking in front of thousands of people, also my happy place!
But, on to the fun stuff! To celebrate our 8 years we’re bringing back a few bars as a blast from the past. They’ve been remade and upgraded and they are awesome. Limited Edition Pretzel Bar and Limited Edition Peanut Butter & Raspberry bar (used to be strawberry but we’re doing raspberry now). Plus a few other fun things to say thanks for being our awesome customers and we hope to continue to be one of your choices as a small business to support. Thank you to everyone, you really do mean the world to us!
Now for the fun - we gotta know your favourite chocolate bar? Doesn’t have to be one of ours but cool if it is (hello Pistachio/Tart Cherry stuffed bar, I’m looking at you!) And, if you could design your most perfect chocolate what would it be? Bonbon, bar, or other?? Let us know in the comments!