Sweet celebrations
Thibaut van Hövell and business partner Natalya Berdikyan tell Susannah Millen about their plans for traditional Belgian confectionery brand Vanparys.
Thibaut van Hövell started his first business following a career in finance in London in the UK. ”After the successful buy out of a national Belgium based restaurant chain and some other businesses, I decided to acquire Vanparys in December 2012 with an ambition to develop an international brand of Belgian quality chocolates and other confectionery products,” he says. ”I have a passion for food and quality and love product and business development,“ he adds.
In December 2014, Natalya Berdikyan joined him as a partner and business development director. After working in international business development in various sectors, she grasped the opportunity of taking the 125 year old Vanparys brand across borders. ”The heritage and expertise of Vanparys ought to be discovered by consumers wordwide,“ she says.
Vanparys – a market leader in Belgium – uses high quality Belgian chocolate and the finest almonds to recreate its original recipes. Founded in 1889 as a family business in the fashionable Sablon neighbourhood in the heart of Brussels, Vanparys has since extended its expertise and its original range of sugar coated dragées to include chocolate coated nuts, fruit and coffee beans, as well as a range of seasonal confectionery products to suit key purchasing occasions including Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas.
The company’s manufacturing plant was built in the 1950s. However, over the years both the production focus and processes have evolved, with the manufacturing facilities undergoing a major modernisation in 2006. The company manufactures to BRC and SAC (AFSCA) safety and quality certification standards. It also has a halal certificate.
Vanparys celebrated its 125th anniversary on 2 December 2014 with a visit by Queen Mathilde of Belgium and Rudi Vervoort, prime minister of the Brussels Metropolitan Government, to its production centre in Brussels. Van Hövell says: “We were very proud to get the recognition from the Queen and the prime minister as one of the oldest Belgian confectionery brands through their participation in our anniversary celebration.”
Also in 2014, Vanparys was awarded the iTQi Superior Taste Award, a stamp of quality in taste granted by food and drink opinion leaders who are Michelin starred chefs and sommeliers. Only products that have received a rating of more than 70 per cent are granted an award in the superior category. ”Our best sellers received the ITQI Superior Taste Award – the mix of chocolate coated almonds and hazelnuts, the fruit flavoured candies and the sugar coated almonds,” says Berdikyan.
Consumer choice
Target consumers for the original range of dragées are women between the ages of 25 and 35 years who are purchasing for a traditional occasion, such as the celebration of a birth or a marriage, as well as other key events such as baby showers, christenings and communions. The other products in the range (mainly chocolate coated nuts and fruits) are aimed at men and women between the ages of 30 and 60 years. ”We sell through hundreds of speciality shops and a few retail chains with an important focus on dragées, as well as wholesalers and food retailers such as Carrefour, Delhaize, Colruyt and Cora,” says Berdikyan. ”We sell directly to these points of sale in the Benelux and France, but we also sell to importers in about 20 other countries.”
Brand development
At the core of the Vanparys collection is the original chocolate dragée: Belgian dark chocolate coated with thin layers of sugar, and delivered in a range of 50 colours that are available in three finishes – matte, gloss or pearlescent.
Over the years Vanparys has developed the unique colours that distinguish its dragées using either natural or synthetic colourants depending on the requirements of the client. Through trial and error, both the recipe of the colourant and the production process is defined. Specialist producers supply the base colourants, which are later applied to a vat filled with dragées to determine the required proportions and production time. This sequence is repeated until the exact colour and finish required has been achieved.
Vanparys also produces gold and silver dragées by applying real silver leaves to the sugar coated confections. In order to get the gold variant, a colourant is added to the silver coating. It is one of very few companies in Europe that still uses this technique.
Its classic almond dragées are made with almonds from Sicily (Avola and Baronne ranges) and California (the Dauphine and Duchesse ranges), and are available in four variants and in four colours.
”The most important products are the sugar coated and coloured almond shaped chocolates, lentils and hearts. The chocolate coated freeze dried fruit and the Swiss fruit traditional candies are also successful products,” says van Hövell.
Over the past few years, Vanparys has developed its range of chocolate coated and fruit flavoured products as well as making existing packaging more consumer friendly and developing new packaging. Van Hövell says: ”Together with a marketing agency and our experienced board members, we analysed the products and packaging of the competition and the consumer needs in different markets. Based on our conclusions, we then developed more communicative and easy to use packaging.”
Brand promotion
Point of sale and promotional materials are of course available to brand retail partners. ”We also use social media such as Facebook, targeted advertising in consumer or trade magazines and the sponsoring of events to position the brand,” says van Hövell.
”We exhibit at ISM and SIAL because we believe that these are leading exhibitions visited by buyers from many countries, as well as at Fedoba, the Belgian exhibition of suppliers of birth gifts,” he adds.
For now the focus for the brand is to continue to develop its packaging and products for both the traditional and consumer channels. Berdikyan adds: ”We wish to continue our expansion in the surrounding markets, such as the UK, Germany and France, but we also hope to find the right partners for an entry into the US market.
”We are already in discussion with some potential partners in Asia and the Middle East, but we continue to look for experienced importers who can promote our products in their respective markets. We understand that we will have to continue developing our proposition in order to respond to local consumer needs, but we wish to maintain our uniqueness using Belgian chocolate and savoir faire,“ she concludes.
