Well, we may as well start at the Rewards section that's where the fun begins!!

We asked you! We thought it would be a good idea to ask our valued customers and patrons-to-be what they thought and what they wanted - so we sent out surveys, we scanned other ATB campaigns, we asked around, and we listened to all the suggestions to try to come up with the types of rewards that mattered because people felt they were getting something unique and of value, but not just "buying it".

Your rewards are based on suggestions that came from the community and we hope you'll love them. 

If you decide to support us, check out the Rewards page for all the awesome things we have in store for you!

There’s a joke in the food industry that craziness levels up as you move through your Chefs to your Pastry Chefs and then finally at the top – to us Chocolatiers! The science, process, and well - fussiness of chocolate really does challenge us but I do enjoy the “Eureka!” moment of finding that unique “superfood” ingredient or flavour combination that can sync up with the medium of chocolate while still respecting the nostalgia of things that people loved to eat as kids. For me, that was pineapple.

As a child, my favorite dessert was to take crushed pineapple and put it in ice cream and make it into a slurry. When our family went to Hawaii, I was in heaven for the fresh pineapple and then discovered Macadamia nuts! I’ve mixed that childhood love of pineapples with memories of Macadamia nuts and coconuts into our Hawaiian piña colada bar and it’s crazy when people tell me they can taste their memories of Hawaii right here on the prairies! But there’s so much more to it…

We’re here on the prairies and that poses a problem because pineapples just won’t grow in the snow! Well, not much does so we rely on expensive freeze-dried fruits as key ingredients to provide our intense all-natural fruit flavour combinations. But, with the current situation (2020 anyone?! LOL) some of our specialty ingredients now take up to 3 months shipping or are just plain out of stock. But working closely with local farmers, producers and suppliers has always been our passion anyway so “Hey, here’s a crazy idea for a solution, why don’t we get our own freeze dryer and make our own ingredients using our local suppliers?!”

The first idea to take things to the next level is by purchasing a vital piece of equipment – a freeze dryer -

so that we can take advantage of produce that’s in season here on the prairies. With our local suppliers and farmers on board we'll get strawberries, raspberries and haskaps that are height of their nutrition, deliciousness and flavour and prepare them for use in our chocolates all year long. 

Now for the second step - A tempering machine - 

While a freeze dryer is a big step, and it seems a little crazy, we’re always running out of ingredients lately because this incredible support from the local community has caused a huge surge in our little operation, and that’s good right? So good in fact, that we’re looking to buy a few more pieces of equipment to help get our chocolate out to our customers, oh, and to save my poor shoulder!

It’s called a tempering machine or temperer. For three years now I’ve been tempering every different type of chocolate by hand, often several at a time in my kitchen. What’s tempering? Oh, that’s where I have to heat, then cool, then stir and then I heat again with more stirring and then cool again at specific temperatures and at specific times and then pour in to a mold! Yay for chocolate! LOL,I know- Crazy right?!  

While doing it this way has taught me an incredible amount about how each different chocolate behaves, the hand tempering process slows me down considerably since I can only work as fast as the chocolates will temper BUT with a tempering machine, I can focus my time on hand crafting, creativity, and my customers!  We wanted to get this Boostr done a few months back so that we could have our crowdfunding finsihed and then buy the biggest part of the temperer but with how fast this year has moved, we purchased one piece of the modular system and now we're looking to complete the system - oh we have so many plans for super cool and new creations!

We’ve done a lot of research and a tempering machine with the accessories will increase our productivity by 75% - that would also mean no more days where I’m working until 3am because I’ve got a market and need more chocolate to sell and my shoulder wants to fall off!

What else do we need?  As we continue to grow we also are looking at all the auxillary pieces of equipment to help us.  There are 2 small machines called the EZ Temper and this will help us with quickly tempering chocolates that we don't need in such large quantities but still speed us up considerably! 

We also realized this year that when we need to make truffles we just don't have enough molds - same with chocolate bars.  When we were small this was no problem, now it becomes a hitch in production.  Also, being able to store our ingredients that we want to make with the freeze dryer and the proper packaging.  And, we've been experimenting with making new flavours of chocolate - that means more Stone Grinders need to come to our kitchen.  

We spent a lot of years building our business getting our brand out there and letting people know who we are and now we want to get back to our roots get working with all of these foods that are right here in our backyard again.  So we hope you'll support us in supporting local!

We LOVE Edmonton and the surrounding area!!   Eventhough we were born here we didn't always live here!  

I think the funny thing with many people is they grow up in a place and they always want to get away from that place. And I moved away for a long time almost 22 years before I returned back to Edmonton (Jason was gone for 12 years). The thing that I found when I got back to Edmonton is it that sort of little city big community feel.  The community is incredibly supportive here. I have found so many different business owners, entrepreneurs, food producers, farmers, and more that have become personal friends along with partners in my business. I think the greatest thing about this city is that people really do support each other. Starting a new business and you'll get dozens of people asking  "how can I help?" 

Why do we love our customers? Our customers are fully engaged in our business. We are so fortunate that not only do we get to speak with them on a regular basis through social media, but anytime we do markets or events we get incredible information and feedback from them.

We’ve always been a very open company that if you’ve got a great idea or something you’d like to see we’d love to work with you on it. When we’ve asked customers in the past things like "help us create our dark chocolate collection" they come out in full force and are ready to take on the task. We have made great strides in our website lately changing and improving it to make the customer experience even better and that comes from our customers knowing that they can reach out to us, send us a screenshot and  tell us they want this that or the next thing and we can make those improvements. Plus when we do our deliveries it’s so fun to see their smiling faces when they get the chocolate that they’ve ordered.

One surprise we did not expect was what we affectionately call our Super Fans!   Over the years we have customers that not only purchase a fair amount of chocolate, and some of them joke they’ve eaten more chocolate in their life since meeting me than they ever have before. But these are also the people that when we are launching a new product they share it and they talk about it.  And, when we are doing an event they tell people about the time they did an event with us. They share stories and they talk about what we do on a consistent basis. They show up for us and we love them!

Why would people want to support this campaign? Right now our local economy is strong when it comes to small businesses supporting other small businesses that are open and I am a small part of that local economy.  But I also support a lot of other businesses. I think by supporting this campaign you’re not only supporting a small business owner that supports her small family but you’re also supporting all the other businesses that she works with.  Money spent in the community is then put back in to continue to support our communities - that's where the real magic happens!

With your help once we meet our goal the first thing we'll need to do is get buying all the equipment we need to help our business during this big growth spurt!  It's pretty exciting that this has been such a great growth year for us  We don't want to miss a beat with providing our customers with the chocolates they know and love.  So, we've set most of our Rewards to be redeemed in January and onwards.  It's a slow time of year for us and the perfect time to craft all your rewards and get them delivered out to you!