Fourth-generation chocolatier Bernard Callebaut has been creating confectioneries for Canadians for 38 years. Now he's working with a new ingredient.

It’s a Tuesday morning in December and master chocolatier Bernard Callebaut has a problem.

One of the filling machines, used in the making of fourth-generation chocolatier’s creations, is malfunctioning. It would likely derail the day for most but for Callebaut, whose family has been in the chocolate business for 110 years, it’s an easy fix.

He wasn’t able to predict the economic downturn but he knows chocolate. He fixes the filling machine with a replacement part. Then jumps on the phone with The GrowthOp to talk about how cannabis is offering him an opportunity to expand the family business in a brand new way.

He says it took about three years to go from his initial inclination to actually entering the cannabis market.

“It takes a lot of time and effort to soak it all up and set it up,” he says. “The paperwork is quite phenomenal but ultimately, you figure it out and you get going.”

He partnered with Palm Gardens , a family-owned Edmonton-based cannabis company, to launch Bernard’s Cannabis Creations. The first products, a hazelnut praline bar and a rice crisp milk bar landed in Alberta and Saskatchewan In July. The bars, which retail for around $4, will be coming to Ontario early in 2022, with British Columbia on deck after that.

Chocolate, a great medium for cannabis

Beyond the regulatory side of things, Callebaut says his process with the cannabis bars is mostly the same as it is at Master Chocolat.

Chocolate, he says, is a great medium for cannabis .

“Chocolate is an oil-based product. The fat in the cocoa bean is an oil and because cannabis oil is used in edibles, it mixes it very well and you can get quite accurate results.”

At both Master Chocolat and Bernard’s Cannabis Creations, Callebaut avoids preservatives or artificial colours. Master Chocolat products, made with cane sugar, are 95 per cent organic, while Bernard’s Cannabis creations are 100 per cent organic and fairtrade.

Callebaut says that appeals to a large section of people “that are looking for quality products.”

“I compare it to a chef in a restaurant,” he says. “He has his creations, his ideas. And that’s the same thing in the cannabis world, you have to come up with products that appeal to the consumer.”

That creativity is part of the reason Shoaib Rasheed, the CEO of Bernard’s Cannabis Creations, was eager to work with Callebaut.

Shoaib Rasheed (L) holds up the ‘perfected recipe’ for a new peanut butter cup, alongside Callebault and quality assurance manager Maham Khalid. PHOTO BY PALM GARDENS

“Bernard is a namesake. He’s very well known, and just having an opportunity to work with him was something I viewed as an honour,” Rasheed says from Calgary.

He also wanted to see Callebault get back to making chocolate.

“My wife and I saw the opportunity to help Bernard rebuild his family tradition,” he says.

Getting back to business

Rasheed has been a partner at Master Chocolat since 2018, where he says the sales volume has quadrupled over the past few years.

Master Chocolat also sells ‘white label products’ to other businesses. Among their customers is another cannabis brand, Legend, an edible line from Ontario-based licensed producer Indiva .

The raw chocolate used by Legend comes from Master Chocolat, but Rasheed says the difference with Bernard’s Cannabis Creations is that Callebaut is behind every step of the process.

“He’s in the factory, making and coming up with the recipes himself. He plays around, he does the formulations. Bernard, by profession, is also an electromechanical engineer. He has a degree in that. So he’s a very, very technical guy.”

The next slate of products, soon to launch in Alberta, includes a peanut butter cup and a 1:1 milk bar.

For Callebaut, 110 years since his great grandfather started the first family chocolate company in Belgium, he says he has no qualms about lending the name to cannabis.

“Our neighbour in Holland, they’ve been selling cannabis for a long, long time,” he says. “So I was very familiar with that. I had no problem.”

Besides, he says, he sees tremendous potential in the opportunity.

“I think there was a lot of hype in the beginning and now it’s settling down as a more regular business,” he says. “I think it’s going to stay here for the long run.”