Chocolat Bernard To Open Factory In Downtown Moncton
MONCTON — Downtown Moncton will be a little sweeter this fall after Chocolat Bernard opens its brand new chocolate factory and boutique.
The company announced the plans on its Facebook page earlier in August.
André Cormier, owner and chocolate maker at Chocolat Bernard, told Huddle last week that he and co-owner Robin Streb started creating their own chocolate after moving to New Brunswick from Vancouver, B.C. after they couldn’t find high-quality chocolate in the Maritimes.
“We just thought, ‘oh, let’s try to make it ourselves; how hard could that be,” said Cormier. “Well, turns out, it’s really hard. It takes a lot of time … But the rewards of making our own chocolate were so incredible that we just kept going.”
Chocolat Bernard uses fine flavoured cocoa beans for their products, which makes up a small percentage of the world’s cacao harvest each year. Cormier says they don’t take shortcuts with the brand, adding it can take almost a month to make a four-kilo batch of the sweet stuff.
What started as a hobby grew popular with friends and family and eventually made its way to the Dieppe Farmer’s Market, where Cormier and Streb have been selling for a little more than one year. That was until this summer when they stopped to focus on the factory project.
Cormier explained it was time-consuming to continue making chocolate out of the pair’s kitchen.
“With the bigger machinery, we can get an even better quality of chocolate, but doing it out of our house, we just can’t accommodate that kind of machinery,” said Cormier. “[Additionally], we can actually make it available more widely.”
Unlike Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, there won’t be singing Oompa Loompas at the downtown factory. But instead, customers can watch the chocolate-making process through glass windows inside the boutique and host tastings with products from different origins.
“It’s sort of like coffee or wine,” he said. “[The environment] has a very strong impact on cacao beans and, in turn, the chocolate itself. So, that’s something we’re really excited about.”
Cormier hopes to open the factory by October. The factory’s website is still under construction, but Cormier said fellow chocolate enthusiasts could find out more through Chocolat Bernard’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
Cormier said he and Streb are excited to take this next step and see what happens. The pair of musicians are in the chocolate business because of their shared passion and they wish to bring attention to good products.
“When tasting fine chocolate, it’s a pretty amazing experience,” said Cormier. “The biggest thing we’re eager about is to share this thing that we love, and I think there are still a lot more people who could enjoy finding this new chocolate experience.”
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