New Chocolate Factory And Boutique Opening In Moncton
MONCTON – Artisanal cacao bean-to-bar company LaRouère fabrique de chocolat, formerly known as Chocolat berNard, will soon open its chocolate factory and boutique in the Saint George Street Urban Quarter.
Co-owners André Cormier and Robin Streb became interested in chocolate and the chocolate-making process when they lived in Vancouver. After moving back to New Brunswick, they decided to try making their own in 2016.
“We thought it was probably simple and we were dead wrong about that; it’s very, very complicated,” says Cormier.
LaRouère makes single-origin chocolate, grown from a single geographic region, from scratch on site. They get their organic cane sugar from Brazil and their raw dried and fermented cacao beans from tropical zones such as Mexico, Peru, Vietnam, Philippines and Tanzania.
“We get them from brokers who have actually visited the farms for the most part, or have relationships with farmers,” he explained.
Customers will be able to take part in individual and group tasting workshops, sample cacao beverages and purchase roasted cacao nibs and beans, and dark, milk and white chocolate at their boutique.
LaRouère fabrique de chocolat will begin operations in October.
“We pay up to four times more for those beans than the actual cacao commodity index would ask for, because we want the farmers to harvest them properly, dry them properly, ferment them properly – the better they’re taken care of at origin, the better the chocolate will be,” said Cormier.
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