Our speciality is importing beautiful chocolates from small, artisan producers from all over the world. Preferably from the countries of origin.
This also means we face many issues which can cause delays, or otherwise affect the availability of our chocolates, including for instance:
- Seasonality. Fine flavour cacao, which is at the basis of our chocolates, is not a bulk product. It is harvested during a certain time of the year cannot be kept fresh indefinitely. Additionally, weather varies, harvests vary, and market circumstances vary. Sometimes a certain type or quality of cacao bean is simply not available, or too expensive for our chocolatiers to buy. And also, cacao harvests can be delayed, which can also mean chocolate production is delayed.
- Transport issues. We try to arrange our transports as seamlessly as possible, and we built up a lot of experience doing so. But things are not always in our control. A strike at an airport. An international incident blocking ships in the Suez canal. Extra tight customs controls due to fear of drugs transports. Weeks or months of delay can be the effect – plus sometimes damage to our chocolates, or extra costs for cooled storage at an airport.
- Mishaps at the chocolatier. All our suppliers run their businesses in fantastic ways, but entrepreneurship is never easy, and in some countries doing business is made extra difficult by political or economic circumstances. Over the years we encountered things like limited electricity supply, kidnappings of farm workers, blocked roads after tropical storms, and illness of the one available organic certification officer that comes to visit once per year. You name it…
Getting this beautiful, special, super fair chocolate to you in top condition takes a lot of effort and it does not always work out as we hoped or planned. For that, we ask for your understanding.
We will try to communicate about availability in our newsletter. But please also do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions on availability or delivery dates.