Nothing can be taken for granted in the business world. Even after 20 years of activity, when we were a pioneer in our industry, when we won numerous awards and when we sell a quality product. The bankruptcy of Chocolats Geneviève Grandbois is a very unfortunate example.
With her small square chocolates with a distinctive white design, the entrepreneur has educated the taste buds of Quebecers to more complex, original and less sweet flavors.
Geneviève Grandbois also became a source of inspiration in her community, at a time when high-end chocolate shops were still rare in the Montreal region. His influence is undeniable, recognize his peers. She has even managed to carve out her place in the world of corporate gifts, with her metal boxes adorned with her name and her timeless logo. His creations were, again last month, sold to the hotels of the Germain Group and to the Château Frontenac.
So when a woman like her withdraws, “it’s tough on morale. It’s terrible, ”said chocolate maker David Landman, owner of the Kao Chocolat shop, in L’Anse-Saint-Jean, in Saguenay. The news of the bankruptcy gave him “chills”. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but tell me with passion how difficult it was to fight against the industrial, very sweet and inexpensive chocolates.
Making good chocolates requires a lot of work, precision, experience and time. It is an art and a science, above all. So when the cost of raw materials increases in a “delusional” way, that is to say about 30 or 35% on average for a year, according to David Landman, operating a chocolate factory is a real feat.
You have to sell a lot of chocolates for two dollars a piece to pay the rent and the wages…
Except that in the case of Geneviève Grandbois, competition from Mars bars, the price of cream and salary increases have nothing to do with this brutal end.
As my colleague Denis Arcand reports, a dispute between Grandbois Chocolats and a couple who were to become co-shareholders would have aggravated an already precarious situation. The case, which would have caused the departure of all key employees, will be taken to court since the contractor is being sued for $258,000.
It must be said that the chocolate factory was already weakened by the state of health of its founder since a serious car accident which occurred in Costa Rica in 2015. “I was disabled for almost five years, told me the woman of 48 years on the phone. When you’re not well, you can’t tell your employees or the banker, otherwise you’ll worry everyone. »
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Genevieve Grandbois
Then 40 years old, Geneviève Grandbois is looking for her words, can no longer speak Spanish, can no longer spend more than five consecutive minutes in front of a screen “for three or four years”. So she has to print all her emails. All because of a concussion that left her with daily migraines and after-effects that would prove permanent. At such a young age, the entrepreneur has no succession plan. She decides to sell her cocoa plantation in Costa Rica.
She surrounds herself as best she can to stay the course and serve her clients. But her state of health no longer allows her to be as creative, which was her strength, much more than management, she admits. During this time, competition grew and stole market share from it. The pandemic then hit hard, with the forced closure of shops and hotels (Château Frontenac, Groupe Germain), which no longer welcomed many customers.
The ever-increasing pressure from social networks surely did not help. Geneviève Grandbois admits that she does not “master them at all” and that she “didn’t stand out on that”.
However, in the age of Instagram, you have to get out of your kitchen to succeed! You have to spend a lot of time on social networks to keep your brand alive, to renew it and create a dialogue with consumers, notes chef and consultant Danny St Pierre.
“If your brand does not express itself virtually, if you are not present on social media to entice people with novelties, he pleads, people will go to your neighbor who is more dynamic, it is clear. Customers are thirsty for discoveries, they are less and less loyal and want to be able to buy online easily, in three clicks at most. This is as true in restaurants as in shops that sell shoes or fine chocolates.
Eleven days after declaring bankruptcy, Geneviève Grandbois is mourning the company she founded in 2002 and which already had 40 employees. She tries to accept what is happening, even if it is “confusing”. She plans to give talks, an activity she particularly enjoys.
“The chocolate is still there. I don’t know what form it will take, but I hope to find a way to be able to communicate again in chocolate, ”she concludes. It could be small squares.