Gallette Chocolates releases bean to bar co-branded with Eataly, in São Paulo, and draws up a plan to grow
Chocolatier Gislaine Gallette cannot complain about the year of 2018: she won two very important awards, one international, third place of the Academy of Chocolate Awards, in London, with the bonbon filled with jaboticaba ganache and first place in Bean to Bar Brasil, with the 40% milk chocolate bar. And she is ending the year on a high note, delivering the first batch of bean to bar to Eataly, produced especially for the house. “We closed the first contract to deliver three thousand bars in four flavors; milk chocolate, homemade gianduia, pistache and 70% cocoa, within the project of offering to Eataly clients products that mix high quality Brazilian (chocolate) and Italian (such as gianduia and pistache) ingredients”, she tells.
The Beginning
Gallette began from Gislaine’s dream kindled for many years, when the electrician engineer by training, still worked in the Royal bank, then Santander, in the ombudsman’s area. In 2000, during her MBA in marketing done at USP, where the theme was a chocolate factory. The idea matured, she made a business plan until in 2011 she went to Wieze, Belgium, take a specialization course at Callebaut. In November of the same year she set up the business which first production came out at Easter the following year.
Gislaine Gallette – Gallette Chocolates
“But I confess that at the time I felt a little frustrated because I thought people were not just working with the transformation but producing their own chocolate,” she says. But since she had already set up her structure, she began to produce anyway. But already at the time, she already imported a Callebaut chocolate, tracked, fairtrade, from Africa. “But it was difficult, because I had to buy in large quantities and in advance, which made the business very difficult,” she recalls. And to grow up, she invited her friend Mitiko Kita to be her partner and carry out the financial part of the business.
On account of some contacts, she discovered the Colombian chocolate from the Luker house, whose work is socially responsible. “There they encourage the substitution of coca leaf plantations for cocoa, and since they also have a farm, they fit better in Gallette’s belief,” she explains. “We do not just want to make chocolates but we want to have respect and consideration throughout the production chain and with the environment. This is fundamental for us,” she observes.
Gallette Chocolates
Two years ago, she met Arcélia Galhardo, from Mission Chocolate, www.missionchocolate.com, one of the greatest experts on the subject in the Americas, in a course promoted at her home, where she taught various techniques. It was then that she realized that it was possible to produce origin chocolate and fell in love with the bean-to-bar movement. “Meeting Arcélia was defining in my trajectory”, says Gallette.
Currently, much of Gallette’s production is bean to bar, although she still works with Callebaut and Luker. “But the idea is to migrate to 100% by the end of 2019 or early 2020,” she confided.
Gallette’s strong point, in addition to the bars, are bonbons filled with jabuticaba, coffees from tiramissu-flavored, espresso coffee, orange-pearled coffee, and the supreme cashew toffee that was awarded at the end of last year at The Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, USA.
Bombom de Jabuticaba – Gallette Chocolates
Currently, they are producing about a ton of bean-to-bar chocolates per month, such as cocoa from mainly Ilhéus farms such as Lagedo de Ouro and Bonança. “We are doing some tests with cocoa from the Camppax cooperative, in Xingu. We intend to place on the market until the end of the year, bars with 85% cocoa from that region. There are many challenges, since the standards vary widely and when there are many variations in the price of cocoa, cooperatives prefer to sell as commodities. But everything is an apprenticeship that we think is worthwhile,” she enthuses.
Bean to bar – Gallette Chocolates
They are also in talks with Pão de Açúcar to set up a special project in some stores, which will have a corner with only branded products. We are still talking, but we are very excited,” she confided.
They have exported to the US, through Bar and Cocoa, www.barandcocoa.com, a joint chocolate club and virtual store that are responsible for the distribution there. “In the first sale we made them three months ago, they bought 200 bars exclusively from the catombo, which is made from a special, very fruity cocoa,” she says.
Growing around here
At the moment, the brand is studying the opening of three to five new franchise-format stores in the next two years. The first, to be inaugurated in early 2019, will be in a place of intense movement, mainly of tourists, and that it will be essential for Gallette to take the next steps. The format will be copied from the São Paulo store, which is in Santana, in the north, where people have gotten used to going for coffee, to enjoy a dessert and take the candy bars home. “We are going to set up the next ones in São Paulo, especially because of logistics, to make sure everything is going to work for us. And the chosen franchisees are entrepreneurs with wide experience in the industry,” she explains.
Chocolate Festival 2017 – Gallette Chocolates
“But the idea is to grow in the malls and improve the coffees offered,” she says. Proof of this is that her employee had just returned from a Senac barista course on the day of the Grão Especial’s visit to Gallette. They serve a coffee from Campo Místico, www.campomistico.com.br, in Bueno Brandão, in the Mantiqueira mountain range.
Service:
Rua Augusto Tolle, 245, Santana, São Paulo
Phone.: (11) 2233 2726
