Hot chocolate

14 August 2003 by
Hot chocolate

Stick a European in the USA for too long and they'll start hankering for some chocolate from back home. They'll line their suitcases with it when returning after a trip to the homeland. They'll pay visiting friends money to do the same. They'll hoard it, ration it, hide it from their kids. Believe me, I'm one of them. Call us snobs, but we're of the entrenched opinion that the USA and good chocolate just don't go together.

Dave and Sally Bany from Oregon are on a crusade to change this. They want to bring quality US chocolate to the masses with a chain of cafés selling handmade truffles, chocolate drinks and desserts - to do for chocolate what Starbucks has for coffee.

And while the coffee shop giant needn't worry just yet - Starbucks is a good 6,000-odd stores ahead of this upstart - it might like to take note, because the Moonstruck Chocolate Company has its sights set high.

When the then-owners of Moonstruck first approached the Banys two years ago, it was merely to secure financing to help expansion. But the Banys, whose background is in sports retailing, were on the lookout for a small company they could take national. One taste of Moonstruck's products and they were hooked. To make fitting use of a well-worn phrase, they liked it so much they bought the company.

At the time, Moonstruck had two stores in its native Portland, Oregon, and two in Illinois - all with cafés attached - plus three franchised stores in Connecticut. The plan was to grow the caf‚s and the wholesale business, as well as improve the company's website. The prototype café, with the company's moon logo and swirls from the chocolate designs worked into the carpeting and ceiling, will have 20-24 seats and be about 1,300-1,500sq ft in size.

As well as Moonstruck's hand-crafted truffles, which sell for as much as $2 (£1.20) each, there is a variety of drinks and desserts priced at between $3 and $4 each. These include seven flavours of "gourmet" hot chocolate, chocolate-blended shakes, ice-cream sundaes, and four variations of mocha drink.

A third Moonstruck Chocolate Café opened in Portland this summer, and two more will open in Oregon this year. Next year, the Banys plan to expand further on the USA's west coast, either north to Seattle (home of Starbucks) or south to California.

Despite there being those three franchised operations in Connecticut, Dave Bany doesn't favour franchising. "I understand it's pretty difficult to control quality, and that makes me hesitant," he says. Instead, financing will come from their own funds, and possibly from outside investors as the firm grows.

And grow it already has, under the Banys' ownership. The company supplies sweet shops, florists and hotels, and you can order its products online. It is also interested in supplying restaurants and supermarkets.

It now has 92 year-round workers - rising to 150 around St Valentine's Day, Easter and Christmas - compared with 52 two years ago. Sales, including wholesale business, brought in $1.9m (£1.2m) last year compared with $1.3m (£805,000) in 2001, and the Banys predict another 50% jump this year, to about $2.9m (£1.8m).

Moonstruck's big break came last autumn when it was chosen to supply table favours at the 2002 Emmys, the USA's annual television awards. The exposure boosted sales by about 35%, says Dave Bany. One of the awards presenters was influential daytime TV host Oprah Winfrey, who took a bite of Moonstruck's Bailey's Irish Cream truffle; the next thing the company knew, it was being featured in Winfrey's monthly magazine, O, and sales shot up by another 200%.

It has helped the company, too, that the Banys themselves are chocolate lovers; he favours milk, she dark. The two enjoy being hands-on: they are in on new product discussions, help with local deliveries, and conduct factory tours for local businesses, new employees and schoolchildren. And their two daughters are more-than-willing taste testers.

Dave Bany is politely quiet at my mention of Willy Wonka, clearly having heard this comparison once too often. But, in truth, the Banys' operation is much more sophisticated than that of Roald Dahl's fictional creation.

A team of chocolatiers, whom the Banys refer to as "artisans" and "craftsmen", quietly work away on a variety of confections, hand-crafted, dipped and decorated, ranging from toffee to truffles to chocolate bars. One chocolate can take as much as 36 hours to finish. And the chocolate itself, from a variety of cocoa beans sourced worldwide, is blended with fresh ingredients, some of them sourced locally, such as Oregon-grown hazelnuts and brandy from a nearby distillery. "I put my soul into each chocolate," says one of the staff, with not a hint of facetiousness.

Meanwhile, head chocolatier Robert Hammond tests new flavours and ideas: more chocolate bars; chocolate lollies; possibly a "gentleman's line" incorporating liqueurs. And the arduous quest for a tasty sugar-free (or diabetic) chocolate continues.

But can such craftsmanship survive mass production? And can they really "do a Starbucks"? Industry watchers say that the idea of rolling out Moonstruck cafés is as sweet as its chocolate, and Americans are ready for it. "The idea that people sit down and eat desserts and chocolate is something that's particularly European and, I think, appealing just now," says Joan Steuer, president of Chocolate Marketing, a consultant to the US food industry. "Americans have an insatiable appetite for chocolate and we're willing to spend more money for the finest chocolate."

Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association in Virginia, says: "The idea of chocolate bars, the café kind, has been kicked around here already and it has potential." However, she sees high-quality chocolate as still being a niche market.

Dave Bany has sampled plenty of European chocolate, but has never been to Europe. That doesn't stop him from wanting to expand there if a USA-wide rollout is successful. But he is in no hurry. "We want to be a really good regional chocolate company," he says, "and if people accept it and it really becomes popular, absolutely, we'd like to be big like Starbucks."

The key to success, he believes, is finding the right location - high-traffic areas, and preferably free-standing, rather than in a shopping mall. The couple has estate agents on the lookout for such sites across the USA.

Dave Bany is hopeful that Americans are becoming more European in their chocolate eating - sampling it more regularly but in smaller, higher quality and more expensive doses. He restricts his own chocolate urge to just a small piece of Moonstruck chocolate every day. He's hoping his customers will become similarly hooked.

A taste of Moonstruck

Chocolate chai hot chocolate
Almond fudge mocha
Mango Tango Moon shake (mango, dark chocolate and vanilla ice-cream)
Moonstruck cream cone (cream-filled mini chocolate cones including vanilla flavour, raspberry, and cookies and cream)
Earl Grey tea truffle
Cinnamon roll latte truffle

Fact file

Moonstruck Chocolate Company Portland, Oregon, USA
Web:www.moonstruckchocolate.com

Outlets: five company-owned caf‚s, three franchises, two more planned this year. Moonstruck also supplies shops and hotels, and sells wholesale
Staff: 92
Sales: $1.9m (£1.2m) in 2002; $2.9m (£1.8m) expected this year
Average spend per head in cafés: $7 (£4.30)

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking