Holiday Season Hopes for High-End Confectionery
By Lorrie Baumann
The COVID-19 pandemic has vitiated the strategic advance of André’s Confiserie Suisse chocolates from its home base in Kansas City and into the national market, but René and Nancy Bollier are regrouping to dodge around the roadblocks that the pandemic has set in their path. René is the grandson of Master Konditor-Confiseur André Bollier, the André behind the business’ name, while Nancy is the company’s co-Owner and Director of Marketing and Wholesale.
Beginning with André’s Confiserie’s debut appearance at the 2018 Summer Fancy Food Show, the couple has been pursuing a strategy to grow the company’s production of fine chocolates to supply more than the two shops that the company operates in the Kansas City metropolitan area and that had become popular places for local residents to stop in for lunch and perhaps a purchase of pastries and chocolates to take home with them. While René was overseeing production in the André’s flagship 25,000 square-foot facility in Kansas City, Nancy had embarked on a complete re-branding of their product line that the couple introduced at the show.
Their presentation attracted the attention of a Whole Foods buyer who offered them a pilot test in three Kansas City stores. “They really gave us a great opportunity to present ourselves in those stores,” René said. That was followed last year by an expansion into 32 stores in Whole Foods’ Rocky Mountain region. “We got positive feedback from that with a lot of holiday items. All locations showed a lot of positivity to what we do, how we do it, the fact that we focus on quality in both product and on the packaging itself,” René said. “Getting the buyers from the individual stores excited about the brand has encouraged them to talk about the brand, to talk about who we are as a family – a third-generation business – and that has really promoted sales.”
There is much for those local buyers to discuss. André’s Confiserie Suisse was founded by André Bollier and his wife Elspeth, who immigrated to the U.S. from Switzerland along with their five-year-old son Marcel at the urging of André’s brother, who was working in Kansas City as a Swiss watchmaker. André set up shop making Swiss chocolates, but it didn’t take him long to discover that he’d launched himself into a market where there was no understanding or appreciation of Swiss confectionery arts. The couple set up tables and chairs in their shop that attracted luncheon customers in and spent the next 10 years educating, educating, educating.
In 1974, André’s son Marcel and his wife Connie joined the business. André’s daughter Brigitte and her husband Kevin Gravino opened a satellite shop in Overland Park, Kansas in 2002, and René and Nancy joined the family business that same year.
By the time Whole Foods came into the picture, they’d charted a path to placing their products in retail stores they didn’t own themselves, and when the COVID-19 pandemic made itself felt in the U.S., Nancy was already in talks with other retailers. The pandemic, though, created uncertainties with respect to André’s’ work force and supply chain that put those discussions on hold.
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Nancy has recently resumed those conversations with retailers who are seeing an increased demand for chocolate. “We are very focused on product, on customer service. Everything we do is what it takes to get a foothold in those markets,” René said. “Retail stores have become a very important part of our business, although online has been a driver during the pandemic. If you can get the products on the shelves of the stores that are necessary for shoppers to go into on a consistent basis, we have seen great success for that.”
René and Nancy are also thinking about how they might be able to expand their product line to include, not just chocolates, but also some of the other items that the company has been serving in its two Kansas City-area stores. Quiche, for instance, was a great success in Kansas City before the Kansas City stores were subjected to COVID-19 restrictions on their business, and the Bolliers are thinking about developing that for sale through the company’s online store. “This is a long-term pivot, and we need to make sure that we’re positioning ourselves well so that when these situations come around, we have the ability to sustain the business,” René said.
While they’re waiting for the pandemic to ease its grip, they’re also using the time to expand their relationships with the national market, marketing through social media influencers with a reach beyond the Kansas City area. “We can increase our brand awareness so that when we go to retailers they can see that we’ve already had some exposure in their markets,” René said. “That’s really how we’re trying to grow the brand, how we’re trying to position ourselves.”
Product development has also continued, proceeding from plans that had been adopted prior to the advent of the coronavirus. As part of a partnership with Sel des Alpes, the company operating the Bex Salt Mine, the last operating salt mine in Switzerland, André’s Confiserie Suisse recently released its Salt of the Swiss Alps + Dark Chocolate Almonds and Salt of the Swiss Alps + Chocolate Caramels. Andre’s also recently released its Extra Dark 80% Chocolate Almonds, which feature extra dark chocolate combined with fresh-roasted almonds and extend the line for Andre’s Signature Chocolate Almonds, the company’s best-selling product.
Around that, the Bolliers are also preparing for a busy holiday season. “We’re forecasting an exceptional holiday season. We count ourselves very lucky that we have a really loyal following in KC and beyond, and we saw that during Easter, Mothers Day, Valentines Day, and even Fathers Day – usually Fathers Day isn’t that big of a deal for us – we saw exceptional sales, record-breaking sales during those times, which I was not prepared for. I was concerned that, with the amount of job loss that we’re seeing in the U.S., that people weren’t going to purchase luxury items like chocolate, but we saw that people were looking for ways to celebrate others, celebrate themselves, looking for ways to put joy into their own lives as well as others’, and things like high-end chocolate are one way to do that,” René said. “I truly believe that if you produce something that is high-quality, and you have it packaged in a way that makes it look special, people seek that out and are willing to spend a little more on that.”
For more information, visit www.andreschocolates.com.
Olive Oil Producers Employ Blockchain to Verify Authenticity
IBM and olive oil producers Conde de Benalua, a cooperative in Spain made up of more than 2,000 farmers, and Rolar de Cuyo, an olive oil supplier in Argentina, today announced they are using IBM Food Trust on IBM Cloud to trace the lifecycle of their product and provide traceability, authenticity and quality for consumers. They join CHO, a Tunisia-based producer that makes Terra Delyssa brand olive oil, and I Potti de Fratini, a family-run oil mill in Italy, which joined IBM Food Trust earlier in 2020.
Using blockchain technology, these companies from around the world are promoting greater consumer trust in their olive oil and working to create a more efficient and transparent supply chain.
Consumers’ demand for transparency and general distrust have been driven by recent reports of olive oil counterfeits and adulteration. That trend is reflected in a broader context, according to a recent IBM Institute for Business Value study, which found that 73% of consumers will pay a premium for full transparency into the products they buy.
“Our mission is to provide customers quality olive oil so they can enjoy a genuine and healthy product. Rolar de Cuyo’s objective in using blockchain technology is to ensure olive oil packers worldwide trust us and choose us. IBM blockchain technology provides the transparency we need to trace the origin of our products, complying with all quality processes to reach consumers’ tables,” said Guillermo José Albornoz, Rolar de Cuyo Director.
IBM Food Trust uses IBM Blockchain technology and IBM Cloud to close the information gap for customers. By scanning a QR code on each bottle of olive oil, consumers can trace its production from the groves where the olives were grown, to the mills where they were processed into oil, to the stores where it is sold. They can see images of where the olives were picked and pressed and get to know the farmers and workers behind the scenes and even review what criteria was met for the oil in each bottle. For example, the tracing will show whether the olives were processed to the standards required to be labeled extra virgin olive oil.
It is you, the buyer who should do some product inspections in order to https://pdxcommercial.com/property/1105-portland-avenue-gladstone/ cialis no prescription purchase the best computer. uk cialis sales If someone is ordering this drug via online and not acquired prescription, then he may acquire important information from the online drugstores. If you do not time during the weekdays then plan your buy cheapest cialis weekend with a dinner to make quality communication. To grab these medicines all you have to do is visit these stores online and get the most favorable deals in the market. buy tadalafil mastercard On the production side, members of the supply chain can work together with greater confidence and efficiency, creating a permanent digital record of transactions that can be easily shared with permissioned parties. This data within IBM Food Trust can also be used to help ensure the freshness of food, control storage times and reduce waste.
“Our Terra Delyssa brand of premium olive oil has seen a spike in demand since bottles of traceable olive oil reached stores shelves earlier this year. Consumers in the US and Canada can now buy Terra Delyssa premium extra virgin olive oil in more than 10,000 grocery stores and online platforms, with more retailers adding Terra Delyssa’s premium, traceable olive oil to their shelves,” said Chris Fowler, Sales Manager at CHO America.
The growing demand in early January helped CHO anticipate a spike in sales due to its new consumer traceability app. Supply chains had ample products on store shelves throughout the pandemic, during which time demand rose 30% due to an increase in consumers cooking at home.
CHO is now working on creating a separate enterprise application for distributors and retailers. This app will provide access to in-depth information about each processing and control stage that a certain lot has passed through, including whether it was first cold-pressed, extra virgin or organic, with analysis from CHO’s International Olive Council-accredited laboratory and third-party auditors.
“Our continuing work with olive oil producers demonstrates the growing momentum around Food Trust and our commitment to strengthening the chain that connects food from farm to table around the world,” said Raj Rao, General Manager, IBM Blockchain Platforms. “There’s a growing desire among consumers to know where their food comes from and an increased business motivation to optimize processes with better supply insights. We’re able to work with olive oil producers and distributors provide a single source of secured and transparent information through IBM Blockchain technology.”
Serious Foodie Sauce Connects with a Culture
By Lorrie Baumann
Serious Foodie, which started out five years ago as a maker of pepper-based sauces, has transformed into a company whose focus is on global, regional, flavorful ingredients. That peppers are still part of the journey is evidenced by its latest sofi Award-winning product, Serious Foodie Brazilian Grill Sauce.
Brazilian Grill Sauce won a silver award this year in the barbecue and hot sauce category. This was Serious Foodie’s third sofi Award, following awards in 2016 for its Blood Orange & Aji Panca Cooking Sauce and in 2018 for Serious Foodie Tamarillo New Zealand Marinade and Dressing.
The new product that won this year’s sofi Award represented a departure from Serious Food’s usual product development process, in that it started at home in Florida rather than during the international travels of Founder Jim Pachence and his family. Most of its products, including the Blood Orange & Aji Panca sauce that won the award in the company’s first year of selling products, are born when Pachence travels to a country that has a cuisine he or his family members admire. He tastes the food, talks about the food, learns about the local ingredients and then he comes home to make a product that uses similar ingredients to demonstrate his new understanding of the culture he visited. “Our travels to Peru taught us quite a bit about the diverse culture – and how Peru became a fusion cuisine culture before chefs in the U.S. ever dreamed about combining Asian with European with native foods,” he said as he described how the Blood Orange & Aji Panca sauce came about. As he learned about Peruvian cuisine during a visit to the country, Pachence came across a sauce that depended on local ingredients that were unfamiliar to him: aji panca, a pepper that’s sweet and smoky as well as spicy, and huacatay, a black mint that’s frequently blended into cream sauces to dress a variety of Peruvian dishes. “We came across a sauce in Lima that used both ingredients, in addition to a native sour orange. The sour orange reminded us of blood orange, which is much easier to obtain,” Pachence said. “We now import both aji panca and huacatay from Peru for this sauce.”
“We tend to do things that are a little bit unusual and a little cutting edge,” he added. “We literally have gone around the world looking at what people eat… and, most importantly, how people share meals. That’s represented in the products, and the recipes. We really try to make this connection of people – that is our mission.”
Development of the Brazilian Grill Sauce that won this year’s sofi Award took a very different path. “We had a bucket of red jalapenos and were trying to figure out what to do with a bucket of jalapenos that’s a little bit different,” he said. “We didn’t want to make chipotle.”
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For Brazilian churrasco, meat is salted but not usually sauced before it’s skewered and placed on the grill, and then it’s served with condiments. “My friends who are Brazilian live by their grill. There is no meal that doesn’t use the grill,” Pachence said. “Those Brazilian steakhouses are often very reminiscent of the style of eating that is done – you’re taking a big slab of meat and cut it into pieces and then hand it around. The meat is unadorned; it’s just the meat as the star. The sauce is for an extra kick of flavor for those interested.”
The Serious Foodie sauce can be used as a condiment sauce for that style of cooking, but it’s also suitable for use as a marinade or a dipping sauce, Pachence said. “It works with any of those techniques. Sugar and salt are kept as low as possible, so it doesn’t burn; it caramelizes,” he said. “We do get a nice depth of flavor when it’s cooked on the grill.”
Although the Brazilian sauce is intended to use as a condiment with meats, Pachence has found other uses for the sauce in his own home. “My wife and I slather it on eggs. We love scrambled eggs with that sauce. It’s a substitute for the generic red sauce,” he said. The Brazilian Grill Sauce is also good on meaty fish, he added. “We’ve tried it on swordfish on the grill – we used it as a grill sauce, and that seemed to work.”
The Brazilian Grill Sauce is also finding its way onto the shelves of specialty food retailers through a route that’s different from that taken by its Serious Foodie predecessors, Pachence said. “We are transitioning a bit where some of these special sauces will be spending a lot of time online before they hit the stores,” he said. “One of the things we’ve learned about our products is that we’ve gained a big cult following. The best way we’ve found to connect with these folks is with online stories…. Most of the people who buy it from us are asking about where they can find it in a store near them. Online is making people search it out.”
The online launch is supported by a strong social media effort and a website buttressed with recipe ideas that let customers know what they do with the sauce,” Pachence said. His plan is that a delayed launch into brick and mortar stores will mean that when the product does arrive on grocers’ shelves, it will already have a following: “We’re building an audience,” he said.
Brazilian Grill Sauce is packaged in 6-ounce jar that’s sold as a six-pack for retailers. The label features bold imagery on the front of the jar and suggestions for use on the back. The suggested retail price for a jar of the sauce is $5.95.
