Ones to Watch | By Sabrina Davis
Bittersweet Chocolate Café
Listening to Klassen, it’s easy to understand
Bittersweet’s heavy repeat business. Education
is a key component of the experience. “One
of the first things you notice in the store is
aggressive sampling,”
Klassen says. “We have a well-educated staff,
and they get people eating and talking pretty quickly.”
Educating consumers is good for Bittersweet’s
business, but Klassen also sees it as good for
the premium chocolate marketplace at large.
“It’s a product that fits in a lot
of ways with wine and cheese, in that where it
comes from and was processed matters.”
Klassen doesn’t do all of his teaching at
Bittersweet; he holds tastings and talks in the
community. A favorite topic is drinking chocolates,
which he explains date back at least 3,000 years
to the Mayans and Aztecs.
Klassen helped develop Bittersweet’s signature
line of drinking chocolates, which includes both
hot and cold varieties; rich, non-dairy concoctions;
chai blends; spicy versions; as well as the sweet
and creamy flavors. The top-seller is The Bittersweet,
the darkest and least sweet of the drinks.
Bittersweet Chocolate Café
LLC partners: Seneca Klassen,
Beth Rostan, Penelope Finnie
HQ: San Francisco, California
Year Started: 2005
Annual Sales: $1.4 million
Total Units: 2
Franchise Units: 0
“I’ve been surprised by the flavors
our customers seem interested in,” Klassen
says.
“Milk chocolate and sweeter varieties don’t
do well, perhaps because people are coming in for
a revelation about flavor profiles.”
Why
it bears watching: Bittersweet
has developed a loyal following
and is poised for growth in several
ways. The popular drinking chocolates
are now packaged for retail sale
in the cafés and via Bittersweet’s
online store. Wider distribution
might come later.
With other merchandise including shirts and
hats selling well, branded products appear
to Klassen to be another area for growth. “We’ve
been amazed at how many people want to take
part of the experience with them when they
leave,” he says.
A third growth area will be in locations.
Bittersweet has a third company-owned store
planned for the Bay Area, and is negotiating
with a potential licensee in the Los Angeles
area. “Depending on what happens with
licensing, we might decide to pursue that
more aggressively. It’s hard now to
say what’s going to be most successful.”
Regardless of the avenues they take, success
appears assured for Bittersweet’s partners.
With the gourmet chocolate sales expected
to reach $1.8 billion in 2010, according to
Packaged Facts, the time is right for answering
consumers’ call for better quality and
variety.
“In chocolate, we are where gourmet
coffee was 15 years ago,” Klassen says. “There’s
still a lot of room to grow.”
