Chocolate Enrobed Debacle

That’s what they call candy coating in the chocolate industry – enrobing. Delicious.

With my knowledge of chocolate vocabulary establishing my obvious credentials, I want to investigate, from a very biased but well informed position, the drama of Calgary-based chocolate company Bernard Callebaut.

If you aren’t familiar with Bernard Callebaut chocolates 1) that’s a shame and 2) you probably do not live in Western Canada. But they are top notch, with 30 stores across Canada and the US. Check it out. The company, whose namesake, along with his wife Francesca (originally named Wendy – there is speculation that she changed it to make herself sound more prestigious), are Calgary celebrity. Them, and that guy on Slice who is really good at training dogs. And Darrel Janz. But I digress.

This summer, the Callebaut company went into receivership. It appeared as though Bernard and Francesca made some very unwise business decisions, and ended up many millions of dollars in debt. Whoops.

The reaction throughout Calgary was one of sympathy. Most Calgarians have fond memories associated with these quality chocolates, and his growing renown as a chocolatier was a thing of pride for a city who is most famous for a Rodeo and Cowboys (the club, not the people). So the fact that he had been so hard hit by the recession that his company, a part of Calgary’s business community for over 25 years, was in danger of going out of business entirely was certainly sad.

But there were individuals with the know-how, means and opportunity to keep this company alive. Mike Freeland, the owner of many Callebaut stores in Edmonton, Brian Beck, former vice-president of operations, and a third unnamed investor, took the reins from Bernard in September. The reactions were vehement. Bernard, the man, rolled his eyes and confessed that he could no longer be sure of the quality since he was not going to be with the company anymore. Interesting, since the new owners offered him a position with the company; Freeland told the Calgary Herald “we’re not chocolate makers. We’re just competent business people that will make sure bills get paid and these are the kinds of things that weren’t happening that led to the receivership.” In response to the news that Bernard was planning on starting up a new chocolate operation, Freeland responded, “I must admit it puzzles me that he wants to set up this whole new venture rather than working with his previous company that he’s invested all this effort into. We’ve been completely open to that possibility.”

you know this guy doesn't wear a fucking suit.

Yet. Calgarians, fuelled by the Herald, backed Bernard in what was made out to be a David and Goliath battle. Poor Bernard, the talent behind the company, victim of the recession, loses his life’s work, and has a bunch of businessmen in suits take over. Who wants to buy chocolates from a company that doesn’t have the smiling face of a chocolatier on its advertisements and in its kitchens. Which, by the way, Bernard wasn’t. The comments regarding quality are absurd, given that all the existing inventory, machinery and staff (yup – virtually all the staff stayed on with the new employers, which should really say something, given that Brian Beck had previously headed, or vice-headed, operations at Callebaut in the past) were still in place. Many vows were made, on the Herald’s website and in private conversation, to support Bernard’s new effort, a ludicrously named Papa Chocolat (which evokes some disturbing windowless van imagery for me, personally), and to abandon these suits peddling stolen (or paid-for at the price of over 6 million dollars…whatever…) chocolates.

this man...

...driving this van

The tides, however, have begun to change. An employee at Callebaut approached the new management, fearing for her job, confessing that Bernard had asked her to rent a storage locker and that he and Wendesca had been using it. She gave her key over, and inside was thousands of dollars of chocolate that had been stolen from the company.

As I learned at boarding school, just because your name is on it, doesn’t mean it’s yours. Before the new owners came in, Bernard ferreted away chocolate, molds (which created the chocolates for Papa Chocolate – this is really the high of delusion to think that no one would notice identically shaped chocolates), laptops and sculptures that had been bought by the company, the latter two which had always taken up permanent residence in Bercesca’s private home[s].

Whoops.

I retell this story in the hopes that people will stop thinking of this man and his batshit crazy wife WHO HAS A BUTLER as the charming victims of fate, the orphans of ladyluck, Andrew Carnegieing their way through bad times to chocolate covered…I mean…enrobed success. They are a couple of crooks who spent money that should have been paid to the people they owed, taking cash out of the register for Louis Vuitton, and lying to the people who not only kept the company afloat, but offered to keep the man behind it all in the business which, they openly admit, is his means of making a living.

A little illustration of the merit of Francesca as a businesswoman and person: two lifer employees at Callebaut are a married couple, which seems to be the beginning of a fairytale I would like to have starred in. However, while Francesca was responsible for making the schedule, one worked the day shift, while the other was responsible for the night shift. If you haven’t got there yet, this means that this husband and wife only got to see eachother on days off or when they traded off chocolate covered uniforms (I imagine they share one…no way you can keep them clean anyways, right?). While Beck was responsible for operations, he realize, “well this is a cruel joke,” and put them on the same shift. They probably started getting sick of each other, but they had previously requested the change from Francesca to no avail. When Beck left, they were switched back to the good ol’ model of blatant capitalist exploitation that was Lenin’s wet dream (I bet…). They work together again now.

I ate my weight in Callebaut enrobed pretzels while authoring this god damn research paper, and will personally attest that the quality is there, and that we should all [over]indulge a little. Maybe, instead of rags to riches, Bernard’s story is actually just sweet, sweet, SWEET justice. Get the pun?