Newfoundland Chocolate Company

Little bites of happiness

Photography by Dave Howells

In 2014, Master chocolatier Christina Dove wanted to say Happy Valentine’s Day in a different way. Inspired by traditional Newfoundland sayings, the team at The Newfoundland Chocolate Company put their heads together and started tossing out sayings they used at home: “Old Trout,” “Me Duckie,” and “God love your cotton socks.” “Arse on that” has become one of the best sellers. We couldn’t believe the success of that first campaign, and it’s just grown,” she said.

That early success was something Christina will never forget. “Within a week we were getting orders to ship bars all over the world: Japan, China and Australia.

And you could tell the people ordering were Newfoundlanders who lived away because they were so excited to find these sayings on chocolate bars. That was so much fun.”

The pink, white and green wrappers contain “little bites of happiness,” but to understand where this company started, you have to know more about Christina herself.

Her father, Ted Dove, began making Poppy’s Old Fashioned Fudge from a handed-down family recipe from an early age but Christina followed a more academic path, at least at first.

“After completing my master’s in neuroscience I worked in neurodevelopmental research in depression, memory and learning, vision, and autism spectrum. I initially started my Ph.D. in Neuroscience in Medicine in 2012 but kept having to put it on hold with the busyness of the company and family.

Christina also is a potter ( Dove Pottery) and started creating pottery dishes and clay sculptures in the ‘90s when she was attending university. “Creating pottery became such a wonderful source of calm that all my stresses would fade.”

The chocolate company is almost like a coming together of science and art and helping people in one fabulous recipe, she added. “Creativity is essential to promote and support within the company as well. Brent, her partner and co-owner in the beginning, was also always full of ideas and loved building the stores and the marketing. He has since moved on to other opportunities but she cherishes the hard work and incredible influences he made on the brand.

Christina loves to get her hands dirty at work. “I find it’s just so therapeutic to carve and to make sculptures – like the shoes, the rubber boots and the capelin chocolates. And teamwork is what makes everything click. I’m all about getting the chocolatiers together and brainstorming about new products. As well, our volunteerism and philanthropy is a big part of who we are as a company, so creating custom products for charities and causes is very important.”

With four stores, life is busy. “With a multigenerational and multicultural staff of over 70 people, I feel privileged to be working with and learning from my team. We all come from such different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures that we all learn so much from each other. We are also surrounded by vats of chocolate, dried wild berries, roasted nuts and fresh caramel, how can we not be loving where we work.”

At the Newfoundland Chocolate Company, things are a bit different from other bigger chocolate companies since they use superior chocolate and fresh ingredients. “We use a high-quality and expensive Belgium Couverture because it’s naturally processed and we support the Cocoa Horizons program. This program promotes sustainability in environmental practices and farming as well as community development. Being natural and having sustainable practices, I feel it’s such a strong value to have as a business.”

Her company’s chocolate is so pure that it’s considered a confection. It’s the same thing with their gelato, made with fresh milk and cream and local berries.

Christina is constantly inspired by her team and how they generate ideas as a group. With warmth and pride, she adds, “I just think the world of my team. They are from all over the world and the experiences everybody brings is incredible. I feel like the luckiest person in business because I feel we’re all in it together.”

As The Newfoundland Chocolate Company, Christina feels one of the biggest responsibilities is to tell the stories of Newfoundland and Labrador properly, through their products and conversations, and it’s a family affair. Christina’s sons have both grown up in the family business. “They both started helping me out back when we were at craft fairs and that hard work built the brand. Noah, he’s incredible in retail. He loves talking with people and that’s important, because what makes us different is the quality of the chocolate and the freshness of the chocolate, and the fact we use wild berries and natural ingredients, but certainly we also found ourselves becoming ambassadors to Newfoundland and my boys were great at that.”

Any conversation that starts with a comment about chocolate rubber boots ends with a chat about the culture and the traditions and the stories of Newfoundland, she added. As for Michael, he’s a fabulous storyteller and innovator, “Michael has helped me through the past couple of years with recipes. He created some of our George Street bars, like the Rob Roy that he made with black currants, which is so, so good,” she said proudly. Her favourite indulgence, though, are the caramels. She smiles, “Those little bites of happiness never disappoint.”

 

 

Newfoundland Chocolate Company