Vancouver’s a world centre for high-end chocolate
The chocolate industry is bursting with local innovators
Every year when chocolatier Pam Williams travels to France and Belgium, she makes sure she takes the time to sample the work of artisan chocolate makers.
All in the name of research.
Former owner of a Vancouver chocolate shop, au Chocolat, the transplanted Californian is now proprietor of an online school that trains people to be professional chocolatiers.
Williams is a sponsor of Chocomap, an online search engine that maps out the locations of more than 1,700 chocolate shops around the world. Chocomap is developing an iPhone app to help international travellers find their way to any shop on the map.
Williams says Metro Vancouverites can find some of the world’s best artisan chocolate in the world without leaving home.
“Here in Vancouver, because we are such a food city, we have embraced and helped nurture some really fabulous chocolatiers,” Williams said. “There’s nothing wrong with Purdy’s or Rogers, or whatever. They serve what I call the family market. But somebody like Greg Hook (Chocolate Arts) or Thomas Haas or Joanne Mogridge (Cocoa West) over on Bowen Island, they’re really kicking it up a notch.
“You can go to Paris and you can go to Brussels, which I do every year, and you’re not going to find anything better than some of the people working here.
“It’s happening because the people in Vancouver realize and appreciate what’s going on and support it with their pocketbooks.”
Recent research confirms that a growing number of people are developing a taste for chocolates that are authentic, or challenging.
Curtis Vreeland, a U.S. food industry consultant, recently reported in a study for Packaged Facts that the “fine” segment of the chocolate industry, encompassing artisans and quality-focused regional players, is growing twice as fast as the market as a whole.
Trends in the U.S. are reflected in Canada, he said.
“In 2009 the [U.S.] premium chocolate market was $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion and accounted for 12-14 per cent of the [total] chocolate market. That was up from nine per cent in 2005,” Vreeland said in a phone interview.
“I’m predicting that within five years, the market share held by premium chocolate will go to 17 from 15 per cent of the [total chocolate] market and generate $2.8 billion to $3 billion in sales.”
In a September report on the chocolate market for Packaged Facts he found that premium chocolate buyers are sensitive about nutrition and prefer to avoid foods with artificial ingredients.
They tend to be younger and better educated than the average chocolate consumer, and they’re more adventuresome.
The variety of flavour combinations Vreeland uncovered in his research suggests that the only limit to chocolate’s compatibility with other foods is human imagination – and at this juncture, imagination is running wild.
Artisans are combining chocolate with olive oil, blue cheese, garam masala, mushrooms, fennel, green tea, sweet potato, scotch, Chinese five spice – and applewood-smoked bacon.
“Bacon in chocolate – I thought that thing had died but there’s a strong market in that,” Vreeland said. “I even found one that was made with [salty venison sausage] meat. That was in New Zealand — meat lover’s chocolate — I can’t say that would be a great one to go to bat for.”
Even if he’ll pass on some of the innovations, Vreeland is impressed by the risks that fine chocolate makers are taking.
“You’ve really got to pat them on the back. It’s the artisans that are bringing the industry forward into new taste realms. They are interesting people with interesting personalities, like winemakers. They are the ones that are keeping the excitement in the market.”
One popular trend noted by Cinnamon’s Chocolates, a family-owned artisan shop in North Vancouver, is the “single bean” truffle.
Tom and Kathi Cinnamon have what they call a “martini collection” of six different truffles, each derived from a single variety of cocoa bean from a single area.
“Like the grapes of fine wines, these beans each have their own distinct ‘personalities,’” notes the shop’s website.
“It will have a very unique, very particular flavour and a lot of our customers are enjoying that,” Kathi Cinnamon said in an interview.
The shop offers rich, intense and authentic riffs on classic flavours and textures.
“People are looking for the nuances, and real ingredients,” Kathi Cinnamon said. “To most of our customers, that’s really important.
“We use organic cream from Avalon Dairy. We feel that it makes a huge difference in the flavour. In our orange buttercream we grind the whole orange — so we determined that if we were going to do that, the orange needs to be organic so that there’s nothing untoward going in there.”
Not all of Cinnamon’s customers are looking for palate challenges.
“There is a chunk of people that want those high-end flavours and particular things. And you know we have a good chunk of customers who just really want that old familiar flavour — but they want the real thing.”
The Cinnamons, who mix their buttercreams in an antique Dayton Cream beater, believe that a successful chocolatier has to use high-quality ingredients.
“We have lots of friends in the candy business all over North America, in Australia, through our association, Retail Confectioners International. We have seen some of them really grow and flourish and have businesses they can be proud of. We have seen others that let it get eroded.
“We just promised each other that we weren’t ever going to make a decision based on cost — which probably is the reason we are not rich.
“We’re old, so this is kind of a lifestyle choice for us too. It’s really important to know that people will really enjoy those things.”
Artisan chocolate isn’t British Columbia’s only boast.
Victoria-based Rogers Chocolates is Canada’s most venerable chocolate maker.
Oct. 25, 2010, was declared Charles Rogers Day in Victoria in recognition of the small company’s 125th anniversary.
“As far as we know, we are the first Canadian chocolatier,” company president Steve Parkhill said in an interview. “There is one confectionary company that is older, Ganong out of New Brunswick, but they didn’t start into chocolate until the 1900s.”
Rogers has seven retail outlets and 300 Canadian partner retailers that carry its products.
“It’s somewhat surprising to be this old and still be a relatively small organization,” Parkhill said.
One thing the company won’t do is compromise on quality, Parkhill said.
“There are a number of products we continue to sell today that are made and wrapped exactly the same way they were in the 1800s. So there is that element of being time tested, with the right balance,” Parkhill said.
The company is working toward greater access to organic food stores and is looking at expanding in Vancouver as the initial part of a plan to raise its national profile.
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