Bar None, This Chocolate Rules

Rick (00:04):

It takes a bit of a blend of art and science to get baking just right, and having extra eyes, ears, and hands can make a big difference along the way. That’s where A.B. Maori North America comes into play. We are the team behind industrial and artisan bakers that help optimize success. We’ll discuss more on this episode of The Oven Light. So let’s get going. Flip the switch. Welcome back everybody to the Oven Light. I’m your host, Rick Olshak. Last time on the podcast, we visited with Steph Berez, the North America vice president of marketing for Twinings Tea. She’s kind of part of the bigger associated British foods family, and it was great to talk to Stephanie. On this episode, we’re going to switch to a different food area, a chocolate-inspired treat. Today, we have the chief chocolate officer for Bissinger’s Chocolate on the program, who also serves as the VP for Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate.

(01:00):

Welcome to the Oven Light, the one and only Dan Abel Jr. Hey, Dan.

Dan (01:04):

What an introduction. First of all, thank you so much for having me.

Rick (01:07):

We’re glad to have you here. And hot off, I did the undercover boss thing yesterday and did the tour late in the afternoon at Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate and had a great sample. It was a dark chocolate with a little bit of raspberry and some caramel. Man, your team was cranking in there, putting out the nice little truffles and bonbons and things. So how’s the chocolate business?

Dan (01:28):

I absolutely love it. It changes by the day. It is very different than my dad’s generation of chocolate business for a lot of reasons, but man, it’s a heck of a niche industry, but I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

Rick (01:40):

All right, Dan, so we’re going to warm up to the program here. Typically, we start the podcast with some fun, quick hitting questions. We call it the hot pan because we do a lot of baking stuff. I like it. And fitting with a box of chocolates, let’s call it the assortments. How about that? Let’s see how we go here. So in your opinion, what is the first time of day that a person should have their first taste of chocolate?

Dan (02:01):

Oh, 10:0 AM.

Rick (02:01):

10:00 AM?

Dan (02:02):

Rick (02:03):

What about earlier than that? In the baking industry, you could have a chocolate donut at 7:00 AM, couldn’t

Dan (02:07):

You? Oh, yeah chocolate donut, absolutely.

Rick (02:09):

Okay. Why 10:00 AM?

Dan (02:11):

I don’t know. I think it’s kind of like a healthy medium between breakfast and lunch and you’re kind of digesting breakfast when a little bit something sweet and a little bit before lunch. But if you want to go earlier, you’re not going to hurt my feelings.

Rick (02:23):

Okay. All right. So let’s go back to that chocolate donut. Chocolate donut, powdered, or glazed donut. What’s your choice when you’re in a donut shop?

Dan (02:31):

Well, you kind of missed my favorite one, the vanilla.

Rick (02:33):

Oh, are we talking an old-fashioned or just vanilla?

Dan (02:36):

Like a

Rick (02:37):

Vanilla longjohn. Oh, vanilla long. It

Dan (02:38):

Would go to me, vanilla longjohn, then glazed, then. Actually, vanilla longjohn, what’s the one that’s a. It’s like the deep fried croissant one. Oh,

Rick (02:50):

A cronut?

Dan (02:51):

The cronut. So it goes vanilla longjohn, cronut glazed, then chocolate.

Rick (02:55):

You’re taking us off track here. I like it. No, but here’s the question though. My wife loves chocolate long john, but not filled. I have to have custard in that thing. How about you?

Dan (03:05):

I like the vanilla custard one, but I don’t like jelly. If I accidentally get a jelly –

Rick (03:10):

You’re disappointed.

Dan (03:11):

Oh, it’s a little bit beyond disappointed. It’s like a breakdown.

Rick (03:14):

Okay. All right, third question. Here we go. If the ban hot chocolate song, You Sexy Thing is not your favorite song, what song is your favorite? You know the song, don’t you? Oh

Dan (03:25):

Rick (03:25):

Dan (03:25):

My favorite, it’s probably not an oldie, but Chicken Fried by Zach Brown Band.

Rick (03:31):

Dan (03:32):

I hear that. I just love it. It’s

Rick (03:33):

A great song. I love country music. Seen him in person.

Dan (03:35):

I have a few times. In fact, I saw him The Pageant and then I saw him at Riverport or whatever it’s called now. And The Pageant was the better one just because we were like almost you to me. There’s not a lot of people there. He was just starting out. He’s exploded now, but he could barely fill the pageant back in 2006 or

Rick (03:57):

Seven. On Anheuser-Busch days, we sponsored him with Landshark Beer.

Dan (04:01):

Rick (04:01):

Yeah. The whole Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett. He was new on the scene and it was a great deal, but might’ve talked about this on a podcast years ago, but I’ll bring it up again. He had a meet and greet opportunity with select consumers before his concerts, and they called it eat and greet. He would bring in a NASCAR styled hauler and bring in this huge semi-truck with chefs and they would create a Southern meal. It was the whole Southern Grounds identity. And they would bring in pulled pork and collard greens and cornbread, and they would feed everybody and then come around, the band would talk to everybody individually. So if you like Zach Brown, it was a moment where you’re like, “This guy’s great.” And your comment about, talk a little bit too, I was at IFT this week. It’s the Institute of Food Technology. It was the big show in Chicago, and one of the booths actually had a Willy Wonka walking around with the music playing, and he is skipping around and doing the whole thing.

(04:54):

It was a scene. You would’ve enjoyed it. So let’s go with this. So we have an iconic product. Fleischman’s yeast goes back to 1868, and we feel pretty good about that. It’s over 150 years old. But man, this doesn’t compare to you guys. You guys go back to 1668, a couple more centuries with the Bissingers brand. So give me the scoop. How does that trace back? Give me a little nutshell of what’s the history? It’s pretty impactful.

Dan (05:18):

Yeah, we try to simplify it in four major key points. So they started sometime in the 1600s in Paris. The exact time, who knows, because we just can’t find that tweet from 1608. It

Rick (05:32):

Was a tweet or – Yeah.

Dan (05:33):

There wasn’t that Instagram post of their grand opening. But from what we’ve collected and what we’ve heard over the years is that they probably had shop in Paris. And it was in 1668, they actually were appointed the confectioner to the French Empire by the king himself. So there was one thing we did find that there was an appointmentship of different professions, which was more of a political appointmentship. And then there was actually ones that the king signed off

Rick (06:00):

Dan (06:01):

And there’s this symbol in the crest of Bissinger’s and the way the symbol is pointing for them, what means it was by the king himself. So it was King Louis XVI. His wife was the Spanish princess that brought kind of sweets to France. And so the whole Parisian sweet tooth Palace of Versailles and then Maria Antoine, all of this centered around the Sun King’s reign. And so Bissinger’s was the family. They were the confectioners to the empire. And they really, what we don’t exactly know is did they still maintain a retail presence shop or did they kind of pack up and move into the palace as their personal pastry chef, confectionary chef?

Rick (06:44):

Yeah, wouldn’t you like to know that one?

Dan (06:45):

Yeah, I know. So that’s what we don’t know, but that maintained course until the 1800s. And so 1845, so 1668 to 1845, we see that they were Confesser Imperial to King Louis X4. They were the comfester imperial to Emperor Napoleon. They were the Confessor Imperial to King Louis Philippe. So it traces through at least three dynasties and then the French empire fell. So they moved to the United States and I’ve actually been doing – You’re

Rick (07:14):

Not talking about the World Cup came the other

Dan (07:15):

Day. Not that

Rick (07:16):

One. No. Okay. All right. Different

Dan (07:17):

Empire. Yeah, the second one. And actually Bissinger’s generation’s in Paris, but they’re actually German family. And so lately I’ve been trying to even use AI to figure out why did they move to Cincinnati? And it actually was, there was a huge alcove of French-speaking Germans that moved to Cincinnati of all places.

Rick (07:37):

Interesting.

Dan (07:37):

And I’ve told it because as we just opened a boutique in Cincinnati, we’ve been really kind of digging into the Cincinnati side of Bissingers a lot more lately. And as I’ve told that to a couple of reporters and historians, they’re like, oh yeah, that makes complete sense. Tons of Germans here. In fact,

(07:51):

I speak to someone the other day goes, in fact, I’m German and that’s why my family moved here. So very interesting. But yeah, that was kind of the. So 1845 is the next major date in history, and that was the US move. So the family comes over, they bring the recipes. We have all these Cincinnati Enquirer articles that talk about the famous Bissinger’s family that once served the Kings of Queens of France now has a shop in Cincinnati, Ohio. So we can really start factually pulling the data from 1845 and then 1927 St. Louis move.

Rick (08:23):

Right. Yeah, I’ve got a question later, but I’m just going to throw it out now since you mentioned 1927. Next year, 100 years in St. Louis. I know. Is there a big plan corporately to celebrate this?

Dan (08:32):

Absolutely.

Rick (08:33):

Okay. But you don’t have anything to tease us

Dan (08:35):

With now. Oh, it’s just going to be free chocolate every day. No, we’ve been really talking about that is how to really make 1927 to 2027 a big deal for Bisingers. And we’ve got a lot of ideas. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. The family’s really involved. There’s some other ideas that we’ve kind of coincided with it. And so it’s actually building. It’s kind of like a snowball. It just keeps growing as we keep talking about it. So we’re really excited. And St. Louis is so important to the brand for a lot of reasons, but it really went from one little special boutique to this nationwide brand that it is today from St. Louis. And so even though we go back 350 years, the last hundred has been dynamic for Bissingers. Well,

Rick (09:15):

I do want to mention, you said Cincinnati, and we’ve got a long history there too. The Fleischman brothers came over and they met a distiller who was in Ohio,

Dan (09:24):

Rick (09:24):

Guy named James Gaff. And that’s how things really got going. They would distill and they would make beer and he needed help with bread. So the Fleischman brothers came in and helped him with that and brought in some yeast and the rest is history. But if you go through our lineage of the Fleischman family, Julius Fleischman was actually the mayor of Cincinnati. Oh really? He was the owner of the Cincinnati Reds. And actually had a secret ownership in the Philadelphia Phillies. That would be collusion today, but we’re not going to get down that path. So there’s an interesting dynamic. A lot of these cities are very similar. St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh.

Dan (09:55):

I feel Cincinnati is as close to St. Louis as any place I’ve ever been to. I really do feel at home there. And I’ve actually, a lot of people have told me that from the Cincinnati side. They’re like, “We really are kind of like St. Louis.” I go, “Yeah, we really are.” And that’s a compliment to both. When you go to Florida, you don’t feel like you’re in St. Louis.

Rick (10:12):

No, for sure.

Dan (10:12):

But when you’re in Cincinnati, you just feel there’s this at home.

Rick (10:15):

There’s a common theme. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Another one on the tour yesterday, the young lady who was giving the tour was excellent. And she made a comment that the king didn’t like chocolate, but Marie Antoinette did. So which king was not a fan of chocolate? And is that a true story?

Dan (10:32):

We got to look into that one. I think King Louis XVI was the one that was introduced to it. And we know he fell in love with it because this was the appointmentship, but it wasn’t until the marriage with his wife.

Rick (10:44):

Yeah. All right. So you have a slogan that you’ve put out there, and I kind of like it. It sums up how Bissinger sees its place in the world. Here’s the quote, “Our goal is never to be the biggest chocolatier in the world, only the finest.” How did you land on that? And how does your team live up to that ethic?

Dan (11:02):

And I think it’s great that you were able to see the production facility tour yesterday because as so many people that I talk to, they think that we can press the button and a chocolate bar comes out the other end.

Rick (11:14):

It’s not Willy Wonka.

Dan (11:15):

It’s not

Rick (11:15):

Dan (11:15):

Wonka at all. And every step of the way, from a caramel to the goes from the candy kitchen to slow bash cooked in copper kettles to then pouring it on a table and cutting them into squares. And then one person’s feeding them on the line to

Rick (11:28):

Hand – Well, I’ve got photos I watched. Yeah. Sprinkling the sea salt on top.

Dan (11:32):

And so to be bissingers, that is our DNA. That’s how they did it literally in 1927 when they came to St. Louis. They didn’t have air conditioning. They didn’t have the conveyor belts, but they would make the caramel the same way. They would put it on marble. So marble’s naturally cool. We have

Rick (11:49):

Marble slabs,

Dan (11:50):

Which we still use today, but we use cold tables so we can force cold water through and emulate marble. A little bit more technology, but the same exact recipe is from a hundred years ago as being made today. They would cut it into squares. They would probably have hand dipped it back in the day where we have the waterfall in robing. And so if we start to extrude or automatic cut or automatically sprinkle, yeah, the chocolate will taste the same, but it’s not going to be as pretty and delicate. So the handcrafted part of Bissinger’s –

Rick (12:19):

It’s in the name, isn’t it?

Dan (12:20):

It’s literally

(12:20):

In the name and it’s as authentic as the story itself. So the only way we can double the production is put twice as many people and twice as many production lines in there. If we go to the next level, and we have, we had one line at one time, now we’re running eight lines in the facility. Wow. So that’s how we just keep scaling. And so because of the nature of how we hand make everything, we’re not a brand for mass market. We would never survive being in a Walmart or a Target because we just can’t produce it fast enough. We can’t run the lines fast enough. If we do, then it’s not Bisinger’s.

Rick (12:55):

Is the right analogy, no offense to either one, but the movie Ford versus Ferrari is great, but this is not a Ford. It’s more along the lines of a Ferrari.

Dan (13:04):

I mean, a Ferrari still to this day is handmade.

Rick (13:06):

Yeah. That’s what I mean.

Dan (13:07):

Yeah. I have friends in the industry, they’re like, “You can buy this machine.” I’m like, “I know, but Bisinger’s, we’re the only one of our kind. And we have to be a unicorn at all aspects of the brand.” And we actually, as over the years, got into some bigger contract manufacturing jobs, put some larger automated pieces of equipment in. You always think the goal in life is to keep going bigger and get into mass retail

Rick (13:33):

Dan (13:33):

Get that Costco business or get that Target business. And every time you do that, you get closer to the sun, closer to the sun, and you either get a tan or you get burned. And we were feeling, we were somewhere in the middle. We were making a lot of volume and pushing truckloads out, and you could see their production lines spinning in the back. We were running one line at seven pieces a second, just cranking it out. But yet it was soulless.

Rick (13:59):

You wanted to stand for something.

Dan (14:00):

It wasn’t fun. I didn’t love it. Other than the fact that I would show pictures or videos, it’s really cool to see a production line moving really quickly, but it just didn’t feel authentic. And so I think because we’re family-owned and because the family were so vested into it, our personalities are very aligned with the company. And we all agree we want to be the king of small batch.

Rick (14:26):

Love it. All right, we’re going to jump back to the assortments questions here. So we talked a little bit about baking, we talked donuts, but we have a deep baking tie. So do you have a favorite baked good that incorporates chocolate? You said, is there any kind of dish at all?

Dan (14:40):

I mean, a chocolate chip cookie.

Rick (14:42):

Dan (14:43):

Fantastic.

Rick (14:44):

Do you know anybody that really makes a good one or do you like it chewy or do you like it crunchy that has a little bit of a snack?

Dan (14:50):

I like both sides.

Rick (14:51):

Dan (14:52):

Those really –

Rick (14:53):

Do you like ice cream in the middle? No, that’s enough. I love

Dan (14:54):

Ice cream in the middle. You know those thin, crispy ones?

Rick (14:57):

Dan (14:58):

Delicious.

Rick (14:58):

Tates.

Dan (14:59):

And then –

Rick (14:59):

Duff Goldman from Food Network loves tastes.

Dan (15:02):

I love tastes.

Rick (15:02):

And they’re fantastic. They’ve got a nice little crisp and crunch to them.

Dan (15:07):

I love that. And then I like the other side, a really soft, fresh baked out of

Rick (15:11):

Dan (15:12):

Oven. My mom makes chocolate chip cookie. Of course, she’s using our chocolate. Fantastic. And that’s something –

Rick (15:18):

Glass of milk with it? No. Or an alternative? Go

Dan (15:22):

Straight up.

Rick (15:23):

Dan (15:23):

Yeah. All

Rick (15:24):

Right. And I was going to go down skim, 2%, all that, almond, whatever. All right. Typical sampler box of chocolate. What do you typically choose? So I’ve got a handmade signature collection for chocolate chocolate. Chocolate, seven-piece. It’s got a dark truffle, French vanilla dream, fresh raspberry truffle, vanilla butter caramel, pecan caramel, peanut butter smoothie. Add those. And a sea salt caramel. What are you picking out of that? Yo bag of fun here, box of fun.

Dan (15:51):

My first one’s pecan caramel. Absolutely love it.

Rick (15:53):

Okay. It’s

Dan (15:54):

Milk caramel.

Rick (15:55):

Is it a turtle kind of thing? Is that what

Dan (15:57):

It is? Yeah, it’s in a square. So the thing is with a turtle is typically your chocolate to pecans to caramel is about balanced.

Rick (16:04):

Dan (16:04):

Pecan caramel is a lot more caramel.

Rick (16:06):

Dan (16:07):

And that’s really what people love the most. So we start making these pecans. The thing with a turtle is it doesn’t always fit because they’re kind of a unique shape. It doesn’t always fit in a tray well. So pecan caramel square, we can put it in the tray, presents really nicely.

Rick (16:18):

Okay. Yeah, kind of fits the box in the container. All right. So I kind of teased a little bit about the World Cup. This is going to date us a little bit by the time this goes out, but now we’re down to a couple teams. Was there anybody that you’re rooting for? We’re looking forward to Spain and Argentina, but did you root for France? Did you root for the US? Did you watch a lot?

Dan (16:41):

I watched a little bit. My wife is huge soccer fan, and so obviously some of the games are during the day. But if we were watching it at home or if it was during, we’d be watching it. And we’re in a store expansion right now, so I’ve been traveling or I’ve been working with the store. My mind’s in so many places. So if I could watch it, I would. But it’s like priority one’s always work or family time. And then priority two is social time. So you see how my golf game’s gotten this year because of stores and everything that’s rolled out. But obviously always Team USA is going to be my favorite, but I am very excited for this final. I think two great teams are in it.

Rick (17:22):

Absolutely.

Dan (17:23):

I have an English friend that was devastated the other day and I said to her, “I think they went a little bit farther than we all probably thought, so you should take that.” And she didn’t like that response. Yeah.

Rick (17:33):

Didn’t like their play after the second water break, but they got a little defensive and now they have to be defensive. So you kind of teased building new storefronts. I think you’ve got about a dozen of them under the Bissingers brand. And I believe, if my number’s right, somewhere around five in Florida.

Dan (17:49):

Maybe four

Rick (17:50):

Coming up

Dan (17:51):

In Florida.

Rick (17:51):

So why Florida? Why is this becoming a hot button? What’s the demo? What’s the connection?

Dan (17:56):

Yeah, so it started strategically. So 2024, I’m sitting in the warehouse of the holidays. So one thing we do is we’re big direct to consumer brand and the big business of the holidays. You can never have enough people at that time of year because we go from a couple hundred orders a day to several thousand.

Rick (18:11):

Dan (18:12):

Any way we could help the team. So my sister, brother and I, and our head candy maker, who I always say is my other brother, we like to go in a couple days a week at the holidays, 3:00 AM, start knocking out orders with the warehouse team, and then we go –

Rick (18:25):

Do you really get in? You get on the line and kind of crank throgh?

Dan (18:28):

Oh, for sure.

Rick (18:28):

Really?

Dan (18:29):

3:00 to 7:00 and

Rick (18:30):

Then I’ll do

Dan (18:31):

My seven to five at the factory. And then –

Rick (18:33):

Boy, that says a lot to your employees though too, right? That you’re in it with them?

Dan (18:36):

Yeah. And that’s the other thing too. It’s like we’re here to help. And the holidays are always, no matter how much you plan, the holidays are always stressful. So you have to be on the ground floor and just try to keep the wheels on the bus and keep everything going because it’s never about. It’s just about keeping. All of a sudden you plan, we need to make this many thousands of boxes of peppermint park and everything’s good. And then all of a sudden cranberry pecan bark selling through the roof when we didn’t plan. So we just stop that and get into this. And it’s just like my mind runs in chaos. I always doing five things at a time, but not everyone is like that. So I have to be like, okay guys, stop the lines, clean the peppermint, let’s smooth it. I always just try to keep it calm even though it’s like we needed that cranberry pecan bark to ship five minutes ago.

(19:24):

So if you’re really on the ground floor and helping the team, I think that’s not only is it good because you’re helping hand, but it keeps quality up, it keeps morale up, and it gets orders out the door. So one of the things I was doing in 24 was I said, how could I help? And they said, why don’t you take the Florida orders? Because that holiday 24, even though we were cold, Florida was warm, takes an extra cooler and ice pack. So it takes extra care. And I was like, well, how many I got to stack this thick? And I was like, okay, I probably should have signed up for another job, but here I am. So I’m going through those, going through those. Should

Rick (19:55):

Have taken Vermont.

Dan (19:56):

(19:58):

Exactly. So then the next day I was like, you want me to do Florida again? He’s like, yeah, same size stack of orders. And I was like, oh my God, we’re really shipping a lot of orders to Florida. So I like Florida. I went to school in Florida. I know Florida very well. And I said to myself, well, okay, well, if we’re shipping Florida and it’d be nice if we ship Florida from Florida, so how do we figure that out? And so January, I go back to marketing team. I said, give me our top five states. And they said, one’s Missouri. Okay, I get that. Two’s Illinois, it makes sense to me. Three’s Florida. I go, oh, interesting.

(20:27):

And then I looked up, I knew Florida a lot of people. It’s like 28 million people. I’m like, okay, well, 8% of the country lives in one state. And so I was thinking, what if we put a distribution center in Florida, shipping Florida from Florida, one day ship point for 8% of the country? Sure. And then I ran the numbers on that and I said, okay, well that’s a great idea, but would not be cashflow positive on day one. So I said, I wonder if we should look at some retail in Florida. And then if you look at our Plaza Frontneck Boutique, which is our flagship location, it’s our brand demographics perfectly. It used to be a Saks and a Neiman. Sax clothes, but it’s Neiman and that clientele of stores. There’s more of those in Florida than almost anywhere else. The other second place would be California and New York, and we’re not ready to go West Coast for retail.

(21:14):

But I think there’s something here. There’s our customer really well. We have a lot of people that go to Florida from St. Louis on vacation, so we would have that brand equity overlapping.

Rick (21:25):

Absolutely.

Dan (21:26):

And shipping Florida from Florida. So I said, if we open some retail and then eventually get into maybe a distribution center and make Florida a big part of the operation. And that’s how it started. And the whole retail expansion was going to be about hitting the four or five areas of Florida and then pausing everything else from New York to Nashville to Indy to Cincinnati to now Boston. And everything else was, I want to say an accident, but it was not in the original scope. It happened and – Organically. Organically. And we’re very excited for every market.

Rick (21:58):

That’s great. And you’ve got some plans for next year too, right? To keep the pedal down?

Dan (22:02):

We’re definitely slowing down next year,

Rick (22:04):

Dan (22:04):

We do have at least one location.

Rick (22:06):

Okay, good, good. So let’s stay on Florida for a little bit because I know you went to college there. I’m a gator. I went to University of Florida, grew up in Central Florida and Ocala. So I know the state very well, spent a lot of time there. So tell me about your time. You’re learning your tutelage days at Rollins College. Not everybody knows Rollins College. It’s tiny. In Winter Park. It’s right there in Orlando. And the mascot, tell me about the

Dan (22:29):

Mascot. Guitar.

Rick (22:30):

Yeah. The tar.

Dan (22:31):

Yeah, the sailor.

Rick (22:32):

Yeah. Most people don’t know that. If you had a mascot challenge, most people were like, I don’t

Dan (22:37):

Know what – I think most people at Rollins don’t even know who our mascot is. It’s like Rollins Tars. And it’s like, oh, okay, but we don’t have a football team. And so we have soccer and we have. I always say we’re really good at the country club sports.

Rick (22:50):

Yeah, there are tennis programs. Yeah.

Dan (22:53):

I don’t even know if half the Rollins students that I would talk to, if I said, “Do you know a tar as a sailor?” They’d be like, “Oh, cool.” I do kind of vaguely remember a tar running around, but also didn’t really look like a sailor either.

Rick (23:07):

Yeah, there aren’t many mascots called a tars. It’s

Dan (23:10):

Rick (23:11):

Dan (23:11):

Rick (23:11):

Dan (23:11):

To be unique.

Rick (23:12):

So you majored in political science and you had a, what, a minor in business? Is that how it worked?

Dan (23:18):

Minor in business. Not an official minor actually,

(23:21):

Because I actually started taking film studies and I was one credit away from. Rollins didn’t require you to declare a minor. And so I kept doing, I think you needed six film studies classes to become a minor. I did five of them. And my advisor, who I really liked, was from St. Louis, which is strange because no one’s from St. Louis down in Florida. I was like, “Where are you from again?” We would talk Amagettis and Ted Drews all the time. Around the hill. Yeah. And he’d be like, “You’re an embarrassment. You need to declare.” Not jokingly be like, “You’re literally embarrassing me. You need to have a minor.” He’s like, “You have five classes in business and five classes in film. Can you just tip the scale?” I’m like, “No, technically I don’t have to.” So he’s like.

Rick (24:04):

So you disappointed your counselor. All right. Man. All right. So you talked about that was the legitimate schooling and education you had. But before we actually had the program, you talked about getting a dinner side MBA through your program, through your mom and dad, the family, sitting at the dinner table and really discovering your acumen for business.

Dan (24:27):

Well, my parents were really. I worked in the candy business in high school. I loved it. We are a family business, so we would talk shop. We didn’t even know how much we talked shop at the dinner table until spouses came into the picture.Because then they’re like, “Please stop.

Rick (24:45):

Stop. Can we just talk about the art shows?”

Dan (24:47):

Anything else. And so it would always be like I would get home from school or if I went to the store to work, we would talk there. We would have talked at dinner. My dad and I, at his house, he has a screen-in porch. We’d sit on the screen-in porch at night. We’d talk there. It was just always business all the time. And that’s how I learned it. But even I remember, I went to school and always the plan to go to college, but I remember a candy store chain closed in St. Louis one of my senior year. I even said to my dad, I said, “I could actually stay and we can pick up some of those locations.” He’s like, “Absolutely not.”

Rick (25:22):

What was that location?

Dan (25:23):

It was called Fannie Mae had St. Louis, and they closed all of them at one time.

Rick (25:27):

Wasn’t it Fanny Farmer and then.

Dan (25:29):

They were separate

Rick (25:30):

Dan (25:30):

Awhile, but then I think Fannie Mae bought Fanny Farmer at one time, but they actually at one time were separate.

Rick (25:38):

There’s Seas, there’s other – Yeah,

Dan (25:40):

Seas on the West Coast. And so all of them had locations. They had five or six that closed in St. Louis at one time. And I had said, I said, “What if I stayed home and ran them?” Skip, he says, “Absolutely not.” He said to me, he goes, “I have one rule and it’s that you’re going to school out of state.” And he goes, “I guarantee you’ll learn something and that’s good.” He goes, “But my opinion,” and he goes, “His college experience of going out of town was learning how to live and coexist without your parents and without your. You have to go

Rick (26:15):

Out – Self-responsibility a little

Dan (26:17):

Bit. Yeah. He goes,” We got to kick you out of the house and you have to go experience life. “He goes,” We want you to come back with an education, but you will learn more living on your own and living in a dorm and living. “It’s

Rick (26:29):

Not a bad way of thinking. I’ve got a high school senior now, and we’re looking at colleges and all that. And he could go five or six hours away to. And

Dan (26:38):

They were fine with that

Rick (26:38):

Dan (26:39):

They were fine with a Mizzou

Rick (26:40):

Dan (26:40):

Hours, but they said,” You have to get out. You have to learn how to do your own laundry. You have to learn how to.

Rick (26:44):

Probably not a bad idea.

Dan (26:45):

And I said, okay, well any other. “He’s like,” No, that’s all. That’s my rule. “I’m like,” Okay, I won’t go to school in Florida then. “So he’s like,” Oh, interesting.

Rick (26:54):

“Well, that worked out pretty good. All right, we’re going to talk a little bit about trends and things like that going on in the marketplace. Certainly cocoa prices. They got crazy. I mean, coming out of COVID, we saw it in a lot of food items. Now we’re seeing gas prices and tariffs and wars and all that kind of stuff. But what’s the latest on cocoa pricing and have things moderated a little bit?

Dan (27:14):

So they did for a minute. So chocolate in the world of cocoa lived in a 2000 to $3,000 a metric ton for almost as long as I can imagine. If it hit 3000, it was like, hold up on contracting.

(27:29):

It’s usually weather. So 90% of the cocoa. Well, all the cocoa is 10 degrees north or south of the equator. And the majority of the cocoa is out of West Africa. And 100% of the cocoa we use is out of West Africa. So bisingers and chocolate chocolate chocolate only comes from the West Africa and the Ivory Coast. There’s other parts of the world. Vietnam, it’s like Vietnam, South America and Africa, 99% right there. Okay, got it. And most of the Vietnamese cocoas stays in Asia. That’s new. But the Chinese palette has been very much. They’re loving chocolate. So typically that doesn’t ever leave the east. And then there’s South America and there’s African cocoa. South American cocoa’s great, but it just doesn’t taste like. Historically, there’s exceptions to everything, but typically that taste profile’s different than the West Africa taste profile that you and I know and enjoy.

(28:23):

So it’s not like we can easily switch. So if it hit 3000, we knew there was something going on. Bad rain, bad drought,

Rick (28:31):

Dan (28:31):

Unrest, would always weather out. So 2,500 was the sweet spot. And if it got down to 2,000, it was go buy everything you can.

Rick (28:39):

Dan (28:40):

And it’s contracted then. You got

Rick (28:41):

To have a good procurement person, don’t you? Yeah,

Dan (28:43):

You’re talking to them.

Rick (28:44):

Oh, so yeah, it’s you

Dan (28:45):

Too. Yeah. It was my dad

Rick (28:47):

Dan (28:47):

Rick (28:47):

Connor? Where’s the hat? Have you put on the chocolate, chocolate, chocolate?

Dan (28:52):

I wear more than one hat. For

Rick (28:53):

Those looking. Yeah.

Dan (28:55):

My dad used to do all the Coco contract pricing, and then I started folding into it. And then I took that over 10 years ago or so. And we would play six-month contracts, one-year contracts. You try to get lucky. Every once in a while you buy a contract and the price crashes and you’re stuck with it. And then just as many times you get lucky.

Rick (29:14):

It happens in business, right?

Dan (29:16):

Rick (29:16):

It kind of moderates over

Dan (29:19):

Time. I mean, before this, it all kind of washed out, but

(29:23):

Then in 2023, it was at like 2,500. Okay, 2,600. Okay, 26, all of a sudden hit 3,000. That’s the red flag we’ve always been known to. From one week, it went from 3,000 to 4,000. Now we’re pulling the 80-year-olds out of the industry, asking them, “Have you ever seen this before?” Those 50-year veterans that we know, we’re all calling that. And I guess there was some major issues in the late ’70s that was a year or two that they all remember. And so they’re like, “Oh, it was this and this, but it stabilized.” And so everybody thinks that this ceiling of 4,000 will be, so we start booking and then 5,000. 7,000. And we’re talking about in six months. Gets to 11,700. It actually traded above 12,000 for the day, but closed at 11,700. And so we’re all just like, what do we do at this point?

(30:13):

We do have some contracts. We’re not buying spot, so this is not an everyday thing, but we’re watching it every day and we don’t know what to do. So 2023 turns into 2024. Our contracts are running out and now we’re booking. Now at 2024, it did drop maybe to 6,500. So we’re like, okay, it’s over. Then it shot up again to 12,000. So we started really – That’s volatility, but that’s – Yeah, 2024 and 2025, we really started paying for expensive chocolate. And then earlier this year got down to 3,000 again or 2,900 even. So we’re like, okay, whatever that was is over.

Rick (30:52):

Or was it?

Dan (30:52):

Or was it? So it’s at like 6,000 today again. Wow. And so I was still contracted in, so we didn’t really book as much as we should have this go around because everyone thought it was. And when I talked to. I was trying to – So

Rick (31:05):

What’s really the driver, I guess?

Dan (31:07):

That’s the million or billion dollar question. Because when I was talking to people in early 24 when this shot to four, five and a six, I said, “Is your magic eight ball telling you something that I’m not seeing?” And everyone’s like, “No.” Supply’s okay? We’re not having major weather issues. Then all of a sudden, three or four months later, there’s some weather issues. No one could have predicted that. And then they said that there’s viruses on the tree, there’s swollen shoot virus that the yield is going down, a term I’ve never even heard of before. You know in COVID how you learn so many new phrases? Sure. We learned so many new phrases and so many new acronyms about now all of a sudden swollen shoot virus can take. And then they’re saying because of so much illegal diamond mining in Ghana that arsenic is getting into the soil and it’s just killing cocoa.

(31:54):

It’s just flowing downstream and all of these. Who knows if it’s even true? Because a year later, we’re into 2025 and the market literally is, there’s so much surplus of beans they can’t even sell them, but yet it wouldn’t push it down. So we think there’s a couple speculators, a couple major funds that just picked on cocoa and made a lot of money. I mean, we will still see the devastating effects from the cocoa industry for the next year. I’ve seen people just go out of business overnight now.

Rick (32:24):

Let’s turn the tables real quick. Let’s talk trends. Real quick hitters. Dubai chocolate has been out there. What do you think of that trend and how long does it stay? And then we’re going to talk plant-based, and then we’re going to talk about GLP-1 and people, how their meal choices and snacking and mealing, they’re calling it snealing now, snacking instead of eating a full meal. That’s new. So what do you think of all this stuff? Dubai and all the challenges that you’re looking at? Dubai

Dan (32:51):

Was interesting. I would say I admittedly underestimated its power because most TikTok trends get replaced by the next TikTok trend. And so I saw this and it literally is called Dubai chocolate because there was like, I don’t even know it was a candy store. I think it was a pastry shop that they made these really expensive bars and they

Rick (33:06):

Decorated. In 2022, I looked it up.

Dan (33:07):

Yeah. And they were really expensive and they could only make a couple hundred a day and they’d sell out really quick. So everything you can to kind of force exclusivity, they did probably by accident because it’s a really hard product to make. It is hard to make. So we made a pistachio crown. I love pistachios. We made a crown piece and I was like, let’s do the Bisinger style pistachios chocolate center with pistachios in it. It’s a shape of a crown. And we put the little bee on the crown to kind of represent the Bisinger’s heritage. And we put that in our assortments now and then made a little five-piece flight with it. I just didn’t expect it to explode like it is. I can’t believe it’s still around. This now, the newest one that I’m hearing about is the cotton candy one.

Rick (33:46):

Oh. So

Dan (33:46):

You bite into the chocolate bar and there’s cotton candy on the inside.

Rick (33:49):

Dan (33:50):

And it’s called the hair chocolate or something. Equally as challenging to make. We’re definitely not touching that one. It definitely doesn’t fit our

Rick (33:58):

DNA. That is interesting. I have not heard of that.

Dan (34:01):

I know.

Rick (34:01):

Check that out,

Dan (34:01):

Connor. Yeah, I mean it’s very visual. So you break open that thick chocolate bar and there’s cotton candy. So it looks like hair because it’s kind of shredded cotton candy. So I don’t think it’s an appetizing thing, but it’s a visual thing for sure, just like Dubai was. Very surprised that it stuck around that long. Originally in 2022, 2023, if you found Dubai chocolate, it was really good. And now you can go to a dollar store and get a very low quality ingredient one. So you have to be careful, not all Dubai chocolates

Rick (34:33):

The same. Been watered down

Dan (34:34):

A little bit. Very

Rick (34:34):

Much watered down.

Dan (34:35):

Rick (34:35):

Right. Let’s talk about plant-based milk alternatives for use in chocolate, or even cocoa alternatives are talking about using fermented and roasted sunflower seeds. What do you think of that?

Dan (34:49):

Why are we talking about. So there’s cocoa alternatives, number one, and now there’s big dollars being invested into lab-grown cocoa. And why did that

Rick (35:00):

Happen? Does the world need that?

Dan (35:01):

Well, we just went from $3,000 a ton to $12,000 a ton. And now I know what it costs us. Imagine what it costs the big three. And so who’s funding it? It’s the big three. You wouldn’t believe how much chocolate has disappeared from the world. And you probably don’t even notice. You probably do being in the industry, but go down the cookie aisle. Chocolate has a very solid standard of identity, but not chocolatey or fudgy or brownie cookies. Most of those grocery store chocolate chip cookies in the middle aisle, they’ve pulled chocolate out. And those were the tankers of chocolate. Wasn’t

Rick (35:38):

That part of the Reese’s thing too, where you had the complaint? 100%.

Dan (35:43):

I actually

Rick (35:43):

Dan (35:44):

Rick (35:44):

The chocolatey candy instead of actually milk chocolate, right? Yeah.

Dan (35:48):

Brad, it was like my claim to fame. So he’s not connected to the Reese’s. I mean, he’s a Reese’s grandson. He’s not part of the Reese’s brand, but he reached out to me on LinkedIn in the past and there was this. One of my moments that I’m very proud of, I have the screenshot is two or three months after we opened our Palm Beach boutique. Apparently Hershey’s had the big event down on the island and he posted on LinkedIn the most talked about things at the Hershey’s event was the new Bissinger’s Boutique in Palm Beach, and then some Hershey thing. I was like, “Oh my God, this is so cool.” You’ve

Rick (36:20):

Arrived.

Dan (36:21):

Yeah, I’ve arrived. But he was right. And

Rick (36:25):

They reverse course.

Dan (36:26):

They reverse course. But no one wants to go make lab-grown chocolate, but it’s kind of like, okay, well, we really got hit hard as an industry, and it looks like we’re getting hit again. And it’s like, so we’re not going to have anything to do with that. We will just figure out how to make it work and we are going to stay authentic. As long as chocolate exists, Bissingers and chocolate chocolate chocolate will be using continuously the same cocoa beans from West Africa.

Rick (36:52):

Well, you’ve got small packaging here. How does this fit in with the new mentality? You’ve got almost 20%, 15 to 20% of people on GLP-1 now and how they’re eating differently and how they’re not snacking as much, but they still indulge a little bit too. So how do you guys see that?

Dan (37:10):

So that’s a great question. As a gifting company, which is our primary business, although we do have, especially with our retail boutiques, you can come in for a couple truffles in a little bag, but we’re really a gifting company. So the first thing to go is that candy bar at the aisle. You’re a checkout at the grocery store. If you’re on that, you don’t have the cravings, so you’re not getting the whatever that is,

Rick (37:34):

Dan (37:34):

Butterfinger, the Snickers, the Twix Bar,

Rick (37:36):

Whatever. Impulse buy.

Dan (37:37):

The impulse buy, you’re passing that up. But God, your mom loves cherry cordials at the holiday, and you would not be her son without buying those Bisingers cherry cordials. And no matter what she’s on, what diet she’s on, she’ll splurge that one time a year. And her Christmas, she likes Bisinger’s decorated cream mince. And I might be right half of this. I don’t know. But those are the moments that we have at Bisingers that are really. So although we make a lot of chocolate bars, our chocolate bar business we have not felt has been affected, but because we’re truly, the only thing is our chocolate bars that are kind of in the indulgent everyday business. Most of what we do is a gifting company. I think it actually helps us in the long run because if you’re going to cheat a little bit or have a little bit of sweets, you really want to say, “Okay, well, I want to make it worth it.

(38:25):

So let’s trade up. Let’s really get something good. If I’m going to have just one piece of chocolate a day or a week, let’s make sure it’s the best.”

Rick (38:32):

Well, he talks about the best. And if you haven’t visited a Bisinger store or you’ve been online, it’s www.bisingers.com. They’ve got some incredible flavors. I saw one yesterday celebrating Stan Musial. It’s got pretzels and caramel. But I’m looking at some of these flavors, dark chocolate, raspberry, caramel, milk chocolate, cinnamon pear caramel, milk chocolate, creme brulee. I mean, that’s a dessert in a bar. Dark chocolate caramelized blood orange. Milk chocolate banana pecan caramel. That’s like an ice cream sundae. So good. I mean, this is fantastic stuff. Or encourage you, if you don’t know about Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate, their website is only two chocolates, I believe. It’s chocolatechocolate.com. You can check it out. But hey, before we go, Dan, I wanted to finish up. Do you have any kind of inspiring words? Is there a book or a quote or something else that kind of pushes the mantra, like your vision for the chocolate industry and for the Bissingers and chocolate chocolate chocolate brands and the family?

(39:31):

But what kind of words of wisdom business-wise could you impart?

Dan (39:35):

I mean, my style of business is very hands-on. And one of the things that I like to do, my office is at the production facility, and I spend 20% of my day there, 80% of my day walking the production floor, visiting our stores, being in the business. And I don’t know how. When you have a business that’s a hands-on business, I don’t know how you can not be hands-on. So my biggest advice is if there’s water on the floor, just help mop it up, be a part of it. And I think that applies in almost any

Rick (40:04):

Manufacturing business. Act like an owner kind of mentality? Hey, it’s good enough for everybody. For sure. You’re an owner.

Dan (40:12):

As a cultural perspective, one thing is you can lead by example for the culture of your brand in St. Louis, but now that we have stores all over the country, one of the things that I coach the managers on is that you need to help sweep up and take out the trash, and you need to make sure that you never say, “This is not my job. I’m the manager. It’s your job.” If you work as a team, you’ll build a team. And our seasoned managers get that. Sometimes the new managers, the team we have is amazing and all of them kind of fit that bill, but it’s one thing that we really encourage is our culture as a family business, how do we make sure that that’s reflected in Florida and in Ohio? And that’s my takeaway

Rick (40:49):

Always. Yeah, you want the same experience at all locations.

Dan (40:53):

The funny thing is going down to one of our Florida stores next week and there’s a cabinet that needs fixed. And she’s like, “Well, we need to call someone.” I told her, I was like, “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it.” She’s like, “Really?” I go, “Yeah, that’s what I do.”

Rick (41:05):

That’s great words of wisdom. Dan, we’re so impressed having you here. Thanks for joining us. That’s it. That concludes this episode of The Oven Light. So for now, the switch is off. We want to say, again, thanks to Dan Abel Jr. from Bissinger’s and Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate for a great episode. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

Dan (41:22):

Thanks so much for having me.

Rick (41:25):

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of The Oven Light. Until next time, when we discuss more about the wonderful world of baking technology, trends, and more, the switch is officially off. Goodbye for now. See you next time.

Bar None, This Chocolate Rules

Episode #47

Episode Transcript

Episode #47

Episode Transcript

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