this husband and wife team – parents to twin boys – has turned into a Canadian symbol.
“We don’t have distributors outside of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but we have customers as far away as Western Canada, the United States, Europe, all over the world – all through our website,” Michael said. “We’ve got a customer in Dubai who every single year calls and orders for their family in Ontario and the family in Ontario does exactly the same. We have a lot of customers who fell in love with our chocolates while living here or were here visiting. We also have a lot of customers who shop online for quality maple and berry chocolates. Either way, they’re people looking for a taste of Nova Scotia.” When I asked Michael and Heather how long a chocolat- ier typically has to practise their art to achieve this kind of reach, I was shocked to learn that they’ve only recently entered the kitchen. “Appleton Chocolates was created by my step-father, Alan Huestis in 1997,” Michael explained. “He built a cabin in the woods across the street from his house with the intention of running a casual retirement business with his first wife, Merle. They settled on the idea of making maple-blueberry chocolates. Sadly, two years into making the product and selling it locally, Merle passed away after a battle with cancer. Several years later, my mother, Beth, became a customer and then friend of Alan’s. Eventually they got married and continued to run the business – still in a very casual manner – with no set hours until it got so busy that they had to make a decision to expand or shut the company down. They decided to shut down in 2012. Fast-forward to 2014. My wife and I were living out West in Edmonton, Alberta and we had the opportunity to come back to Nova Scotia and takeover the company. The company had the potential to continue its success – and beyond that – and with our energy and enthusiasm, we decided to buy it from Alan.”
“For most of our centres we start with a maple fondant, which is a moist mass of very fine sugar crystals. Our fondant is similar in texture to firm maple cream or maple butter. We add different fruits and berries to the fondant, and we roll them up (by hand) into centres. We dip these centres twice in European chocolate, and then we wrap them in coloured foil, package them up, and sell them to our customers. Sounds so simple!” “We have a lot of customers who fell in love with our chocolates while living here or were here visiting. We also have a lot of customers who shop online for quality maple and berry chocolates. Either way, they’re people looking for a taste of Nova Scotia.” But it’s not simple. Every Gold Box of 12, every Tin of 24, every Bag of 12, every Gift Box of 16 or 24, every Small Box of Two is a testament to a handmade family tradition that
Michael wasn’t totally without experience, but even he admitted that not a lot of it entailed recipes.
34
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS • OCTOBER 2016
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker