With the cost of many of her main supplies skyrocketing, Alicja Buchowicz knew she had to make some drastic changes.
First, the head chocolatier behind Ottawa’s Alicja Confections decided to close her Richmond Road storefront and reduce her team from 22 employees to three. The location had opened during the pandemic but, after about a year as the cost of ingredients started to increase, Buchowicz said she “could see that things were eventually going to fall off a cliff,” not only for her business but for the chocolate industry as a whole.
“The hardest (thing to lose) was the employees, because some of the employees had been working with me for well over five years. When you work in a small business, you become friends with these people.
(Sponsored)
In a tough economy, investing in community is more important than ever
When finances are tight, it might seem counterintuitive to give back, but supporting our most vulnerable neighbours this holiday season can actually help businesses weather their own challenges. At United
Invest with confidence: Hydro Ottawa funds technical studies for business retrofits
For Ottawa businesses, the opportunity to improve building performance has never been greater. Energy retrofits can cut emissions, strengthen operations, extend the life of assets, reduce operating costs, and position
“I wasn’t just going to struggle until eventually we go bankrupt and then it’s all just going to fall by the wayside and my 10-year business turns into nothing. That’s a waste,” Buchowicz said.
Instead, she wanted to keep up production while not dramatically increasing prices.
“I wasn’t willing to raise our price to the point where I would be able to keep the store and pay for our chocolate orders; like, it would have ended up being something like $18 a bar, which is just not fair to me,” Buchowicz told OBJ Wednesday.
“I just can’t put that on the customer,” she said of raising the price of her $12 chocolate bars. “Especially with what’s going on in the world, sometimes you just need a freaking chocolate bar with some potato chips on it to give you a smile.”
Now, her pared-down operations are allowing her to flex some creative muscles. Early next year, she will re-brand Alicja Confections as Postie, a callback to her most popular item, the postcard chocolate bar.
“I’m so incredibly excited about it because it’s fun and cute and the packaging is so much more substantial,” she said.
“Every creative thing that I’ve wanted to do with the company I couldn’t because it didn’t fit in with the way that the brand was,” she said. “Now there’s generally something for everyone, not only with the flavours, but also just the way it looks.”
With the rebrand and in an effort to contain costs, Postie will carry about 25 flavours, down from the nearly 80 flavours Alicja Confections produced.
“With some rebrands, sometimes what brands do is they’ll reduce the size of the bar sneakily or they’ll remove ingredients. We’re doing the literal opposite and we’re adding more to every single bar.”
Postie will change ingredients that don’t resonate with audiences or increase the amount of ingredients per bar.
“The Whatever! bar (is) a cookies-and-cream bar, but it’s milk chocolate-based … I’ve seen that in Japan. No one in Canada likes it. It’s way more popular with a white chocolate base, so we’re switching it … making the cookie bits larger, lots of improvements like that.”
Next month, Buchowicz is starting a packaging company named Flute. About five years ago, she said her custom-designed postcard chocolate bar boxes were becoming a hefty expense and so she decided to research alternatives.
“I can see so many of my friends and other small businesses, not just in Ottawa but all over Canada, struggling right now. I was racking my brain this summer over what I could do. What is something that I can change? Just like with (Alicja Confections), I can’t change the price of chocolate, but there are things I can change,” she said.
To start, she identified a gap in the market for affordable, fast packaging solutions.
“Every single packaging company I know of in Canada is extremely old school … It takes forever to get anything done,” she said. “Other countries have just totally zoomed past us in terms of quality, service and price. I want to bring that here to Canada so it’s accessible for small businesses.”
Flute will sell food-related packaging products such as paper bags, tissue paper, pizza boxes and, of course, chocolate bar boxes. Businesses will be able to either upload their logo and branding to the Flute website and select from the products or, if they don’t have their own brand, Buchowicz will be offering branding design.
“It’ll definitely be new territory for me because I have always done my own design work,” she said, adding that her services will range from creating a logo to helping design a storefront.
Pricing for Flute products will vary, but Buchowicz said it will be competitive.
“For a typical packaging company in North America, they would probably make you order 5,000 boxes … they would probably cost you 75 cents to a dollar each. With Flute, the cost will likely be close to 35 cents a unit and you can order as little as 500 (units),” she said.
Buchowicz said she has bootstrapped her way through, but would consider investors for Flute.
“I’m personally financing it. I have always reinvested every dollar back into (Alicja Confections). So (Alicja Confections) is paying for the Postie changes and stuff like that … I’ve thought about investors with (Alicja Confections) but I don’t think I would ever do it. But with Flute, I think I would be open to it,” she said.
Buchowicz said she is looking forward to speaking with customers at upcoming markets such as the One of A Kind Show in Toronto and the Ottawa Christmas Market, which she’s been involved in since its inception.
