Hemmings has been with the company for a little over four years but the company itself was started over twenty-five years ago in 1996 by Bob Ross. The Ross Chocolates story started when Ross, who was an avid chocolate lover, was diagnosed with diabetes. Not wanting to give up chocolate he grew frustrated in his search for a recipe for chocolate without sugar. At the time there were very few and even less that tasted good. So, the journey began, Ross started the company, Ross Chocolates and started his quest for great tasting sugar free chocolate. The company did really well initially with great sales in Canada and expansion into the U.S. After the popularity of the Atkins Diet started to fade in the late 90’s and early 2000’s sales began to slow down a bit. There was very little new product being put out by ‘better for you’ choc- olate makers. That along with little focus on sales meant that sales for the company declined rapidly. A new owner and focus came into the Ross Chocolates brand in 2016 as Stefano Urbani saw an opportunity for growth of the brand that had done so well in the past but was now struggling. Urbani had a vision of where the market was going, he knew that he could take over this company and really build it back up to what it was before if not better. And that’s exactly what he did. Urbani came in and the first thing he did was start a new line that had a stevia-based sweetener added to it. Hemmings explains, “This was a game changer and extremely important because the original Ross Chocolates line was sweetened with Maltitol. If you had a very, very sensitive system and you ate a lot of it, you might have some digestive issues. So, with the new sweetening blend that Urbani had introduced into the mix, that problem was avoided, because it was processed by the body totally different, and you didn’t have the same issues which allowed people to be able to eat chocolate like they would regularly do without having to worry about the possible side effects.” People enjoying chocolate was very important to Urbani. Some- thing else that was very important to him and that Urbani wanted to keep as part of the brand was its diabetic connection which was the core of why the company was started in the first place. Urbani made it part of this company’s mission to put a certain percentage of all the sales towards supporting diabetes research and events in both Canada and the U.S. like the study that was recently completed by the University of British Columbia where their data proves that sugar free dark chocolate, like what is offered by Ross Chocolates, does not spike blood sugar levels in Diabetics. The study confirmed that, “A sugar-free (stevia, erythritol, and inulin-sweetened) dark chocolate bar led to a lower blood glucose iAUC compared to a conventional dark chocolate bar in people with diabetes. It appears that sugar-free dark chocolate could be consumed without compromising blood glucose control in people
with diabetes.” So often companies in the better for you sector make fruitless claims that are not substantiated by facts. That is why funding for this type of research is extremely important to both Urbani personally and the brand to ensure the science is inline with their marketing. In looking to build a better business and brand Urbani felt that the Canadian market was good, did it have room for growth, well of course it did, but the U.S. really had the potential to take the business and the brand to the next level. So, in 2017 Phil Hemmings was hired to lead the charge and expand the business into the U.S, “Stefano asked me to come in and to first oversee the Canadian sales, but really to prepare the company and launch into the U.S. So that was my main role when I came in four years ago.” Hemmings goes on to say, “There was a lot of work to do at the time. The packaging really needed to be changed. We felt it was kind of okay at that time, if we were looking to just stay on the shelves of pharmacies, but we really felt there was a broader market for our product. We felt that grocery and natural food stores would be open to our products. We saw the way the market was shifting slightly and moving towards ‘better for you’ products, with consumers looking to reduce sugar in their everyday diets. There was just a lot of evidence and information pointing to the market shifting and we just knew that this would be a great opportunity for us.” \Wanting to capitalize on these opportunities, the company invested in their facilities, upgraded all the equipment and capacity just in case they landed a national account south of the border, they wanted to know that they had the means to fulfill that order. But that was not the only reason for the investment. They also wanted to make sure that they had top notch safety standards for the employees and for their consumers. They became BRC certified, which is a third-party certification to set standard that manufacturers, brand owners and retailers must fulfill to safeguard consumers. It is also one of the highest safety standards that you can be awarded for a production facility. Hemmings says this was important to the businesses because, “We wanted people no matter where they were in the world, to see that we were BRC certified and know right away the type of company that they were dealing with. We wanted them to know that in addition to the quality of our product, that we took their safety very seriously and we took our business seriously.” Most Canadian manufacturers will tell you, “What works in Canada doesn’t necessarily work in the US.” How you get accounts and the passage or travel to those accounts can vary north and south of the border. Thankfully, they were able to source a lot of brokers, but trying to find the right one that offered the right distribution and path to market was a bit of a challenge. Hemmings adds, “We finally were able to get
“Stefano asked me to come in and to first oversee the Canadian sales,”
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
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