Building a craft chocolate business is not, and never has been, a sure thing. Makers who have been wildly popular with huge demand have gone out of business, despite their best efforts. Colin Gasko (Rogue Chocolatier) was once called the best chocolate maker in America. He was written about in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and in Eater.
From Megan Giller:
In 2008 Martha Stewart hosted Colin on Martha for a segment called “Making Chocolate With Colin Gasko.” In 2011 pastry chef and chocolate expert David Lebovitz gave Rogue a shining review. Rogue has won more Good Food Awards than you can count on both hands. Chocolate expert Clay Gordon, who runs the Chocolate Life website, told me,
“Colin is probably the best chocolate maker in the country right now. He’s the future of American craft chocolate.”
Welp, let’s hope that prediction about the future wasn’t right.
The question: If it’s not demand and popularity (and awards), what is it that keeps some makers in business, while others call it quits?
For some, calling it quits is personal: Acalli stopped making chocolate because her rental space was no longer available, and she was starting a family; Charm School closed “for other things,” Wm Chocolate quit because they said there wasn’t enough demand for single origin bars.
In 2023 big, established craft maker Theo announced plans to lay off workers and merge with a candy company, saying
“As Theo navigated the post-pandemic economic environment, operational and production challenges, and overall increased costs, it became clear that Theo’s current operating model would no longer be sustainable.”
In 2023 the longtime chocolate company Black Mountain Chocolate closed it’s doors.
“We just needed a few more people to experience our magic, and we couldn’t seem to get them in the door. Combined with the lingering impact of the pandemic, the difficulty in finding BMC-quality staff, dramatic cost increases for all of our raw materials and supplies, the hill was just too high to climb.”
Black Mountain (winner of multiple chocolate awards, including, many Good Food Awards) was already in full-swing when I became a chocolate maker. They were the first bean to bar chocolate company in North Carolina; I recall buying their bars when I was visiting family there and thinking What is this? In 2014 they moved locations to “create more of a gathering spot, with an increased emphasis on sales of coffee, baked goods, gelato and alcoholic beverages.”
Their stated mission sounds familiar:
Our mission is to educate people about where chocolate comes from! …there is a lot of science to it and there’s a lot of agriculture to it. It’s something that almost everyone in the world loves and knows what it is and so we like to get sustainable fair trade chocolate to make sure that is aligning with our standards.
Consider the statement “we just needed a few more people” which = revenue (sales) next to “we couldn’t get them in the door” which = we did not reach our target audience.
Websites are our voice when we aren’t in the room
I’m not saying that selling online is the best or only way to sell our craft, but a thoughtfully-designed website that SPEAKS TO OUR UNIQUE reason for making chocolate is, in my experience, an integral resource for small batch makers. Even if you don’t sell online a website can point to where people can find your bars, detail your approach and background, highlight awards and achievements.
A few websites to take a peek at.
Brasstown Craft Chocolate is another North Carolina bean to bar maker. Their website stands out, and their story is compelling and interesting. It says there’s a story here and shows chocolate. That’s something different from just showing chocolate. Chocolate = what someone who goes here is looking for, while an authentic, unique story = speaking to our audience, and why they might stay long enough to learn more and make a purchase.
Compare the visuals above to the website, below. What dismays me about the website below (besides how unappealing it is), is that this is a big, well-funded maker who has money enough (as one expert called it) for “stupidly expensive” equipment, but they don’t understand they need to have a sense of style and story.
Style~~the colors, fonts, graphics, and images~~we choose is what speaks for us when potential customers visit us via our website. It helps us tell our story.
By help I don’t mean just the words. We land on a website and stay or leave. In order to stick around long enough, we need to feel there’s a story. Unless we’re shopping for tires :) Anything that people shop for using their emotions requires a clear story.
Your website should speak directly to what your potential customer is looking for. Of all the many (so so many) websites I visited for this post, the websites below made me want to scroll through, click, stop, and shop.
The J Street website lets a shopper know right away they’re offering something unique, and conveys a sense of the maker behind the bars.
The Harvest Chocolate website below is inviting, clever (dear cupid is memorable and fun) updated and seasonal.
Another company whose website is appealing, charming, and personable is Poppy & Peep.
Dwaar’s website has a culinary, grown up luxury feel, and harkens to the maker’s heritage and roots.
Tips for websites
A few issues I kept coming across in my research.
Before the holidays clean up issues, broken links, add new colors, make it fresh
After the holidays update any “holiday” touches immediately, including your announcement banner
Holiday products (candy cane chocolate) not only seem dated as soon as the holidays are over, they are outdated. Same with Valentine hearts and chocolate bunnies
Make sure there is a place holder photo when a product is sold out
Upload a unique favicon: it’s the tiny logo in the upper left corner of a website’s tab
Have enough products! a scant website has the feel of walking into a store with bare shelves
Don’t overwhelm us with zillions of products.
Make sure your photos are optimized (sized) correctly; one large maker’s photos were postage stamp sized, while a few others were too large
Check the view on mobile
Just because someone is a web “designer” who charges $$$ does not mean they have style know-how; look at their portfolio before hiring
Update your terms of service and copyright to the current year
Feel free to post questions in the comments!
Next week here at the newsletter we’re taking a break from all this biz stuff and diving into some batches.
Happy chocolate making!
Mackenzie
Very much on point Mackenzie. My company used to design and build websites for a lot of sustainability-oriented clients (business, non profits, and government), and even though it's so much simpler to build websites today, the basics still apply—like the simple tip of updating the year in your footer!
Just because you make the chocolate doesn't mean "they will come and eat it" ... it's hard but important work to tell the world about you!
We are in the process right now of building our website. So many things to think about. One thing I think needs mentioning is accessibility. Can everyone read or navigate your website? Can screen readers navigate it? Color contrast is important as well. Text color over another color might look good, but can everyone read it? Interested in looking to see if yours is accessible? You can go to https://wave.webaim.org/ and input your website url to see how accessible your site is.