Moncton Chocolatier Eyes Wholesale Market
MONCTON – Despite launching in some of the worst possible economic circumstances, Moncton’s LaRouère fabrique de chocolat is carving out a comfortable local niche selling craft chocolate – with eyes on a fresh market, a little over a year after launching.
“We’re still developing clientele. What we do is a bit of a unique market in terms of chocolate,” said co-owner André Cormier.
“It’s not without its challenges, but anyone can expect that opening a business; we’re figuring it out slowly and getting there. The lights are still on.”
Cormier told Huddle the plan for 2023 is to launch into a wholesale market, but that there are some adjustments to be made on the production side first.
“In the next few months, we’re going to make significant gains in that area.”
The single-origin, bean-to-bar artisanal chocolate maker creates products from scratch using raw, dried cacao beans from brokers in South America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
“We go through different origins. Once we run out of chocolate from that origin, another origin will sort of pop up, and we always have at least 10 origins going,” he said.
“All the different origins have different flavour profiles. That’s what we do to make unique kinds of chocolate.”
Cormier and his partner and co-founder Robin Strebb – both trained musicians by trade – cultivated a passion for chocolate when they lived in Vancouver.
They launched LaRouère in November 2021.
On a good week, LaRouère makes as much as 30 kilograms of chocolate, while an average week sees a yield of between 20 and 27 kilos.
LaRouère sells its chocolate and hot chocolate mixes in small batches. La Factrie is the only Moncton business to sell LaRouère’s hot chocolate; it also has plans to start integrating LaRouère chocolate into its pastries.
“They are dedicated to using local products, come hell or high water, and we’re local chocolate,” Cormier said.
When asked if LaRouère had inked any deals with New Brunswick chocolatiers, Cormier said that has not happened. That’s because the kind of chocolate LaRouère makes is not compatible with the business model of most chocolatiers.
“The model is quite different, between chocolatiers and chocolate makers. The chocolate we make is actually made at a high price point,” he said.
He said that chocolatiers use chocolate made for specific purposes, while LaRouère’s products are “better enjoyed as a tasting chocolate.”
“The model is just so different. The viscosity is proper, the right amount of cocoa butter is in there, so it melts properly and it flows properly for their purposes,” he said.
“We don’t really do that. Our chocolate is made craft, so it doesn’t flow and it’s thicker. That’s the difference between our chocolate and, let’s say, industrial chocolate.”
The craft chocolate maker’s main audience in Moncton is chocolate enthusiasts. At LaRouère’s 150 Weldon Street home, guests can try one of the five blends of hot chocolate or any of the six kinds of single-origin tasting chocolate.
In a previous interview, Cormier told Huddle he and Strebb pay up to four times more for cacao beans than the cacao commodity index would call for, to ensure cacao farmers follow the harvesting, drying, and fermenting rules for the beans and ensure the highest quality of chocolate.
Cormier said some origins have been slow to come in, on account of crimps in the supply chain, and that usually relates to whether or not they can be loaded on ships in a timely manner.
“Sometimes they can’t find containers or things like that and the broker that brings it in on container ships faces a delay,” he said.
“We were pretty well stocked, so that hasn’t really affected us. It’s just a matter of things taking a bit longer than they would have normally.”
Cormier noted that the minor supply blips LaRouère suffers were not the reason its intended October 2021 launch was pushed back a month.
“Ironically enough, we were a week before Covid exploded. We just had started looking at spaces to set up shop. We visited one or two, and then the world stopped,” he said.
“We kind of put it on hold until spring 2021, when we resumed looking for places and we went from there and found the place, did renovations through that summer and started operations in the fall and opened the doors the first week in November.”
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].
Editor’s note: this story was last updated on January 23, at 12:15 p.m.