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dollars and sense — 2025 price increase

I have been procrastinating this moment for a while because it is not an easy decision but after four years of business, I have to increase our prices. In 2024, the cost of the Ecuadorian cocoa butter that we use increased by 112%. This year we will have to do a significant restock of cocoa nibs at the current commodity value for cacao. Add into all of this the general inflation of the other ingredients that go into chocolate making. As the company has evolved over the last four years, we have been able to increasingly buy better ingredients so that we could use as many of the best, sustainably produced ingredients as financially possible for a small business. We have gone from buying generic cocoa nibs to...

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2024 wrapped

2024 was full of highlights and achievements  feature in the Spring issue of the LCBO's Food & Drink magazine product appearance on The Good Stuff with Mary Berg mention in the Globe & Mail about quality chocolate companies in Canada 62 days at markets and shows first year with a booth at the spring One of A Kind show launch of the cross-border e-commerce site with 21 products first time vendor at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of such an amazing community, and I'm grateful to have you along for this journey🎉 Happy New Year 🎉

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festive season has arrived

The warming smell of holiday spices are swirling around the DWN factory with the full holiday menu now available in-store and online.It wouldn’t be the holidays with the delightful smell of baked goods, so we coat crispy malt balls in our house-made milk chocolate, infused with a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, allspice, and cardamom to create delicious gingerbread malt balls. Roasted pecans are caramelized in maple syrup and then mixed with gingerbread chocolate to create a delectable chocolate bar. For those who crave an extra kick, our ginger snap bar delivers the most ginger-zing along with crunchy pieces of Biscoff.We welcome back the eggnog bar, which features rum-soaked cocoa nibs blended into a spiced mylk chocolate. Also returning is the cranberry juniper orange bar, made from ground cranberry...

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taking cocoa mass out of chocolate equals white chocolate

This is probably the most controversial topic that I encounter on a regular basis because there is a lot of debate over whether white chocolate is 'real' chocolate. Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, but cocoa beans can be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa powder. white chocolate = cocoa butter + sugar + milk powder  If cocoa butter is a bi-product of a cocoa bean, by my definition it is chocolate.The controversy arises because a lot of products marketed under the illusion of being white chocolate are actually confections because they are made with other oils taking the place the cocoa butter (eg., vegetable oil, palm oil, sunflower oil). Commercially-made white chocolate only has to meet legal standards set by...

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