high-end canadian chain purdys chocolatier opening stores in halifax and dartmouth
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an artist's rendering of a purdys chocolatier storefront.
purdys chocolatier
purdys chocolatier will officially become a coast-to-coast operation when it opens two stores in nova scotia in september.
the nearly 120-year-old canadian company announced plans to put shops in the halifax shopping centre and dartmouth’s mic mac mall by the end of the summer.
“we’re very excited,” said kriston dean, purdys vice-president of sales and marketing.
“we were founded in vancouver in 1907 so we’ve been in this region for a long time and we have slowly moved east. we’ve been in alberta for about 50 years, and we’ve been in ontario since 2004, so still pretty recent compared to our history. as we’ve looked to expand the brand, we’ve always talked about the maritimes and atlantic canada and what that might look like.
an artist’s rendering of the interior of a purdys chocolatier store.
“honestly, it’s been from customers asking and, basically, demanding that we come out to the atlantic canada region, so it’s taken us a while. we have strategically talked about it for quite some time, and we were ready to cross into this area for a while, but it was also real estate dependent. we’ve been waiting for the right spots in the malls and working with our landlord partners to make sure that when we enter the region we were in the best places we could be. those opportunities finally came up for us and allowed us to come into the region.
“now we’re ready to move into the halifax shopping centre and mic mac mall in dartmouth, but we’re also going into champlain place (in dieppe, n.b.) and regent mall in fredericton, so four stores in the area all at once, which is great.”
with 86 locations across the country, purdys battles laura secord for the title of canada’s biggest chocolatier.
replacing laura secord
a purdys chocolatier shop in mississauga, ont.
postmedia file
and as it turns out, purdys will initially move into the space recently vacated by laura secord at the halifax shopping centre. that store closed in late april, but purdys will put its pop-up shop there while the final touches are being put on the permanent location next to the body shop.
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“the location that we are taking permanently isn’t available until the new year, but we really wanted to be there before christmas so we’re putting in a temporary store to allow us to be there from september through the new year while we build our permanent location,” dean said.
“it’s the same thing in dartmouth. we’re putting in a temporary store (next to sephora) there to start.”
all that will be missing at the pop-up stores are loose chocolates in display cases and ice cream service. those will be offered at the permanent locations.
purdys also makes as much of an effort as possible to use ingredients produced in canada. because of climate constraints, they import their cocoa from peru, ecuador, ghana and the ivory coast, but most of the other components come from local suppliers.
a selection of purdys chocolates.
“our dairy, our cream, ice cream, even other raw materials that we can source from canada, we do. and everything is made in our factory kitchen in vancouver, so all of the chocolates are made in one place,” dean said.
“that factory kitchen serves us across the country, so everything is made here in canada. but things like some of our nuts, we don’t have that industry in canada, so we do source the highest quality from around the world. but where we can, we absolutely source local first.”
made in canada, shipped across canada
because purdys makes all its products in british columbia, they will have to ship everything across the country to the new nova scotia stores. dean said, “we’ve already had those logistics figured out for a while now.”
“the interesting thing about our chocolate is we have a very conservative and short shelf life, meaning we don’t add preservatives or things into our chocolate recipes,” said dean.
“it’s as fresh as you can get, and we ask our consumers to consume it within three weeks of getting it. so now that we’ve been in ontario — and, yes, atlantic canada’s a little bit further than that — we’ve figured out through temperature control transportation how to ensure that freshness remains as we travel further away from where it’s made.”
an artist’s rendering of the interior of a purdys chocolatier store.
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