Chocolatiers expand to meet demand

When Deborah Ann and Mike Grissmer were planning to start a candy-making business in Ridgefield in 1998, they thought they'd be opening something unique in the Danbury region - a shop featuring hand-made chocolate candy. But they discovered they were just one of a half-dozen chocolatiers in metro

I don't know why there are so many chocolate stores in this area," Grissmer said. "Other areas of the country will have one dominant chocolatier, and each area tends to have a couple of chocolate manufacturers that are well-known in that area."

But the Danbury market has an unusual cluster of chocolatiers and none dominates the market, Grissmer said. "Maybe it's because there are so many of us," he said. "Hauser Chocolatier in Bethel is definitely well known, but there are probably people who know about Bridgewater Chocolates in Brookfield who don't know about Hauser."

And there are probably people in Ridgefield who know about the Grissmers' Deborah Ann's Homemade Chocolates on Main Street who don't know about Sweets and Treasures in Danbury. In fact, there were six chocolatiers in the region until last year, when Hauser Chocolatier bought Bray's Chocolate Lace, also in Bethel.

Growing demand

What each chocolatier has in common quality price their is the quality and price of their chocolate candies, "Over the past five years there's been an explosion in quality chocolates, more boutique-type chocolates," said Ruedi Hauser of the 22-year-old Hauser Chocolatier on Bethel's main street, Greenwood Avenue.

The trend toward chocolate lovers paying more for quality chocolate but eating less of it began a few decades ago when Godiva established itself as a higher-priced chocolate, Hauser said. And Americans who travel discovered European chocolate "and created a whole new area of demand," especially when gourmet magazines began featuring higherend chocolate candy. There's even a magazine - Chocolatier Magazine - devoted to chocolate candy and desserts. To gauge the depth of demand for upscale chocolate, Google 'chocolatier' and you'll get more than 2.2 million hits.

Demand is so strong that three local chocolate shop owners have built factories to keep up. Hauser Chocolatier, which moved its factory from Bethel to Rhode Island a dozen years ago because of onerous property taxes on its manufacturing equipment, employs 22 people in its 20,000-square-foot factory and is adding another 5,000 square feet. Bridgewater Chocolate, which began in that rural community's general store in 1998, moved to Brookfield where it opened a 10,000-squarefoot factory and retail outlet in 1999. And Deborah Ann's moved its molding operations into a 4,000-square-foot factory in Brookfield three years ago, about a mile - from Bridgewater Chocolate.

Those factories distribute their chocolates regionally through small chocolate stores, and nationally by mail order and Web site orders. "We just started selling some wholesale chocolates to a company in Poughkeepsie, (N.Y.)," Grissmer said. "We'll work out the kinks and see how it goes from there."

And while chocolate is usually connected with St. Valentine's Day, the bigger selling seasons are Christmas and Easter, chocolatiers said. "Valentine's Day is a big day, but it's all last minute, not a whole season like Christmas," Hauser. said. "People don't go to Valentine's parties three weeks before like the Christmas season, which is three or four weeks."

During the Christmas holiday season, Grissmer said, "you have a really long period of people going to parties, or getting gifts for the office or clients. For Valentine's, -first its moms getting little treats for their kids, then we see the husbands or wives come in, then the husbands and boyfriends come in at the last minute, the last day."

Specialty chocolates

Local chocolatiers compare gourmet chocolate to fine wine. "We have talked about doing a couple of new candy bars with single-region beans," said Andrew Blauner, vice president of Bridgewater Chocolate. Chocolate lovers are becoming more sophisticated about their chocolates, he said, and chocolatiers have caught the trend. "There are more and more high-end confection and chocolate manufacturers popping up around the country," he said.

Bridgewater Chocolate buys a mix of chocolate from Belgium, Italy and California. Deborah Ann's in Ridgefield imports its chocolate from Pennsylvania Dutch country.

"We use high-quality American chocolate," Grissmer said. "People tend to think Belgian chocolate is best, but all the cocoa beans come from the same place: South America and Africa, the tropical areas of the world. The trick is what you do with them."

Metro Danbury's chocolatiers each have their own specialties. Sweet Pierre's in Ridgefield features hand-made fudge. Hauser Chocolatier "is pretty well-known for our truffles," Hauser said. Bridgewater Chocolate specializes in turtles, toffees and caramels. Deborah Ann's specialties are turtles and butter crunch. Sweets and Treasures in Danbury features truffles and pecan and cashew pralines.

Each of the chocolatiers makes molded chocolates as well, selling for around $25 a pound for a box of assorted candy.

"A lot of people think American chocolate is Hershey's," Grissmer said. "That's tasty when you're a kid, but there are now a lot of really good chocolate manufacturers out there who take pride in what they're doing."