Building a bonbon business

By Josh Spilker

At first, Charlene Dupray’s story seems like fiction.

The Wilmington native and French aficionado goes to Paris and meets her husband, Pascal Siegler. After living for a few years in New York City, they leave lucrative careers for her hometown’s slower pace. They buy a house at the corner of 9th and Orange, paint it pink and transform their kitchen into a mini-factory producing bonbons.

They launch a company to sell the chocolate treats, naming it after their collective backgrounds: South ’n France.

The handmade bonbons are a hit at the Carolina Chocolate Festival and then win the “Best New Chocolate Product” award at a national candy convention. A wave of positive press washes over the company as it gears up for national distribution.

This is where the story now stands, where the fairytale meets financial reality. Now Dupray and Siegler – real entrepreneurs, not fictional characters – need to figure out how to capitalize on their initial success and create a successful enterprise.

“It takes a lot of bonbons to pay your mortgage,” Dupray noted.

Fortunately for Dupray and Siegler, the premium chocolate market is booming. Premium chocolate sales soared from $896 million in 2001 to $2.05 billion in 2006, according to Mintel International Group, a market research firm in Chicago.

Big players like Hershey’s and Schweppes are snapping up luxury chocolate brands as premium chocolate sales are expected to continue to grow, reaching $3.5 billion by 2011, according to Mintel.

The big challenge for Dupray and Siegler is how to reach these buyers.

For Christmas 2007, they mailed 5,000 glossy catalogs to showcase their various bonbon packages and gift-wrapping options. They ended up shipping packages to nearly every state.

“It was really exciting to me when we got orders to ship to Wyoming,” Dupray said.

South ’n France ships their bonbons with frozen gel packs, which last for up to 48 hours. They can use twoday ground shipping for East Coast orders but have to absorb the additional expense of two-day air shipments for West Coast orders.

“It’s worth it to lose a little bit of money to ship the product that far,” Dupray said, adding that she views it as an advertising expense.

Dupray originally hoped to double sales from the prior Christmas season but was joyfully disappointed because they would not have been able to handle the work.

Their annual revenue increased from about $35,000 in 2006 to approximately $78,500 in 2007. Their goal for 2008 is to double again and then continue to do so for the next five years.

Changing careers
Making a career out of bonbons was not Dupray and Siegler’s original idea when they moved to Wilmington.

In New York, Siegler was maitre d’ at the celebrated French restaurant Daniel, which is owned by celebrity chef and author Daniel Boulud. Dupray worked at a consulting firm, with a focus on talent acquisition and event planning for international companies. They resided on Manhattan’s upper east side, living the typical New York “grind,” as Dupray described it, and each worked 60 to 70 hours a week.

“We lived to work, we were making great money and spending it,” she said. After a few visits back to Dupray’s family in Wilmington, they entertained the idea of moving. Over a year’s time, they mulled their options. They looked at businesses, and they looked at houses. They thought about starting a catering company, a bed and breakfast or perhaps a Frenchthemed retail store.

But their finances brought another realization.

“We could buy a business and whatever that means, or buy a house or a property, but we couldn’t do both,” Dupray said.

So the house came first. The building at 9th and Orange, a former industrial space, convenience store, bar and lounge, featured an open room with a separate entrance, complete with a large open kitchen. A dining table, a sitting area and prep area could all function in the space.

“I felt that it was a great combination of what we were looking for,” Dupray said. “I felt this space could work for us on many levels.”

In December 2005, with about six months of living expenses saved, they moved to Wilmington without jobs. Given their backgrounds, starting an events planning company or catering outfit seemed to be the best options.

“We had both entertained the idea,” Dupray said. “We both had entrepreneurial spirits.”

What came to mind for their company was luxury, transcendence and an experience with a French twist. Relaxed living, family and quality time are present in the Southern and French cultures, along with the natural curiosities Americans have about French luxury.

Finding a niche
During the holiday season in 2005, they were participating in a family tradition – the making of peanut butter bonbons. They thought they could use the bonbons as an addendum to a wider operation, perhaps as a part of a catering or retail outfit.

“It was a very minor piece of what we thought was a much larger endeavor,” Dupray said.

And in some ways, this is where opportunities began to dictate their product choices. In December of that year, Dupray thought it would be good for South ’n France, whatever its incarnation, to be at the Azalea Festival in April. After a quick Internet search, they found out the deadline to register was in mid- January. Within 10 days, they quickly registered their business, started the copyright process and came up with graphics and a logo.

Once registered for the Azalea Festival and still in the festival mode, Dupray hunted on the Internet and came across the Carolina Chocolate Festival held every February in Morehead City. Knowing that chocolate bonbons were part of their mix, they thought this would be a good place to get a read on the market. With only a template recipe developed, they were determined to have a product ready for the chocolate festival.

“We had a big job ahead of us,” Dupray said. “We basically mobilized troops.”

Those troops included friends and family who would learn how to dip and create bonbons, using the ingredients and recipes set by Siegler. After they came up with a few flavors, they put several thousand in production. At the end of three weeks, they had made 16,000 bonbons that they kept in six deep freezers.

If Siegler’s strength is creating a strong product, then Dupray’s is marketing. She already had sent out press releases to the local television stations and newspapers about their debut. At the festival, she donned a brightly colored pink hat and outfit, announcing South ’n France. Dupray called the festival that year a “huge success.” Ten people manned the booth at one point during the Saturday and Sunday event, and they sold half of their initial inventory. With such a great debut, the couple has repeatedly returned to the festival. “Their product is superior,” said Carolina Chocolate Festival executive director Janet Grainge.

“Their presentation is outstanding as well. Their pistachio creme bonbon is out of this world.”

Dupray and Siegler were slower to see what others tasted with the first bite – that the bonbon product alone could create a substantial revenue stream.

“We started with the idea that we will do this until ... and then re-evaluate,” Dupray said with a shrug, indicating no timeframe for the “until.” “And then it took on its own life. It wasn’t really a conscious decision.”

Bonbons on the front burner
Pascal and Hank Dupray, Charlene’s father, arrange a pot of chocolate atop a burner. Pascal dons plastic gloves and states his bounds for the photo shoot.

“This is it,” he gestures to a tray of no more than 10 bonbons – those are all the ones he will dip.

Customers enjoy the contrast between Dupray’s exuberant hosting style and Siegler’s reserved, careful culinary expertise.

“When you meet the two of them, you giggle,” said Tracy Pope Conlon of Professional Personnel Consultants about her experiences buying bonbons and attending parties. “Gracious southern hospitality meets the passion and the spirit of the French. Truly that’s what you feel.”

Pascal lays the tray next to a pot of chocolate. He sticks one with a needle. While hovering over the pot, he swoops the ball of fudge brownie into the smooth liquid chocolate, and with a twist of the wrist, spins the excess off of the brownie ball. A bonbon is made. He slides the needle out of the bonbon, leaving the bonbon with a signature. The small hole on the bonbon provides evidence to the careful process and the reason why a tin of 32 costs $55.21.

Dupray said everyone who attends a bonbon party always offers advice for how to make the process go faster. Some suggest a dipping rack, like for dying Easter eggs, to do more than one bonbon. But with a faster method, South ’n France would lose its distinctive edge over the competition.

“If the hole isn’t there, it was probably not handmade,” Dupray said.

The small balls of dough also are rolled by hand, and then each is dipped and twirled by hand using a needle to balance and dip the bonbon.

“Not a lot of them make them handmade,” Grainge said about other chocolatiers. “That’s what Charlene and Pascal do differently.”

During the beginning of 2006, Siegler and Dupray spent the next eight to 10 weekends at various festivals, which included the 2006 Azalea Festival, one of the coldest in festival history. The other festivals became too cumbersome, and they soon realized why they were so successful at the first one. It was a chocolate festival, and people were there to buy chocolate.

“People didn’t understand the product, they didn’t know what it was,” Dupray said. “There was tons of education that had to be done.”

The next step of their development was education. This came in the way of bonbon-making parties that also flaunted a luxurious, relaxing experience that they wanted their product to convey. They used the flexible space of their home to entertain small groups of 10 to 15, and that also became their secondary revenue stream to the bonbon.

“It’s not really about coming to make a bonbon, it’s the experience,” Dupray said, adding that it also includes learning more about French culture.

Once they brought in a couple of groups, the word spread. South ’n France began to generate a buzz at no cost.

Nicole Rademann, a customer from Raleigh who used to live in Wilmington, first went to South ’n France with her book club and also heard Dupray on the radio. She has attended a few different parties at South ’n France but enjoys the bonbon making party the best.

“I love getting my hand in the bowl of brownie mix,” Rademann said.

After visiting South ’n France at the party, Rademann later placed a large order of 200 to 300 bonbons for her parents’ wedding anniversary.

“I made the order a month and a half in advance, and they made it clear that there would be no problem,” she said.

Dupray believes the parties create an experience that opens up South ’n France to future product sales.

“They’ve spent two hours getting to know us and our products,” Dupray noted. “They became our sales force.”

And they become excited fans. Rademann has no problems coming down from Raleigh to visit South ’n France.

“Even though I live in Raleigh, I’m all about coming down to see them,” she said. “They become your friends very quickly.”

Building a bonbon business
In the summer of 2006, sales became flat during the warm season, and the parties had yet to gain full steam. The savings the couple had put aside were running thin.

“One of the things we realized, we needed a larger market,” Dupray said. “The local market was not going to anchor us.”

Siegler and Dupray went to the Philadelphia National Candy, Gift and Gourmet Show in September 2006. After entering their products in a contest against large national candy corporations, they won an award for “Best New Chocolate Product.”

“We were shocked because we knew nothing about the industry,” Dupray said.

What they soon realized, based on the response from trade publications, was that they had stumbled into a niche. Not many companies make bonbons, much less hand-made chocolate bonbons. This reinforced the idea that parties were pivotal for education about their product. They continued the parties through the holiday season of 2006 and introduced a crepe-making party in 2007 that became popular during the summer months.

The holidays, though, remain a big season for South ’n France. For 2006, they didn’t plan for Christmas until September, and that still turned out a third of their revenues for the year.

Valentine’s Day is their next big target, for which South ’n France will embark on another first – employees who do not live in the house. South ’n France will train a pool of workers who will be on-call during the busier points of the year.

“What we learned from the Christmas season is that we definitely need help,” Dupray said.

For 2008, Dupray said they will attempt a “two-pronged approach” to future growth. Not believing that the local market is tapped out, but knowing that national sales are important for a one-product company, South ’n France is actively looking for a retail space in downtown Wilmington, as well as a space in an online gourmet “shopping mall,” where a single site hosts several vendors. To accomplish that goal, Dupray said they will need additional investors.

“We’re entertaining a building, we also know to take that leap we need additional financing,” she said. “We’re looking for partner investors or some other creative solutions.”

There are no exact models in the gourmet chocolate industry that South ’n France is following. According to Dupray, chocolate makers often choose a focus, such as ingredients or being handmade, and pursue that route to its fullest. It’s important to South ’n France to expand without losing its homespun nature.

“Everyone is trying to find their niche right now – some are succeeding and some aren’t,” Dupray said. “I think what we’re doing is unique in several ways for our industry, and we don’t hold fast to the industry. We’re just trying to carve our own way.”