December 11, 2024 • 35 mins
If you know chocolate, you know Bissinger's. If you have never heard of Bissinger's, you will learn why they are not only the finest chocolatier's but, so far undisputed, they are the oldest chocolatier in the world.
So what are the secrets behind all all the hundreds of Bissinger yummy delights? You're about to find out as Judi with an i for "chocolate" chats with Dan Abel, from the family that continues to give us the best chocolate and more, and of course, all over the world too!
AND you'll also be one of the very first to learn of the expansion of Bissinger's and what we have to look forward to very soon!
Take a listen as the history of Bissinger's alone, could be a hollywood film! (And should be!) Bissinger's confections were a delicacy among notable names such as Napoleon Bonaparte and the Rothschilds, and the family was even granted the title of Confiseur Imperial (Confectioner of the Empire) by King Louis XIV! AND of course, you and me!
Thanks for your ears and subscribing and make sure to check out Bissinger's site as well as their App available on IOS and Android devices.
They are online, in fine stores, and straight to your door! Happy Chocolating!
Facebook teaser pleaser
So what are the secrets behind all all the hundreds of Bissinger yummy delights? You're about to find out as Judi with an i for "chocolate" chats with Dan Abel, from the family that continues to give us the best chocolate and more, and of course, all over the world too!
AND you'll also be one of the very first to learn of the expansion of Bissinger's and what we have to look forward to very soon!
Take a listen as the history of Bissinger's alone, could be a hollywood film! (And should be!) Bissinger's confections were a delicacy among notable names such as Napoleon Bonaparte and the Rothschilds, and the family was even granted the title of Confiseur Imperial (Confectioner of the Empire) by King Louis XIV! AND of course, you and me!
Thanks for your ears and subscribing and make sure to check out Bissinger's site as well as their App available on IOS and Android devices.
They are online, in fine stores, and straight to your door! Happy Chocolating!
Facebook teaser pleaser
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have history in the house. Dan Abel from Bissengers Chocolates.
I wish I had my applause button on me because
I'm really excited about this. First and foremost, I have
to ask, what do you do there?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I don't know if we have enough time.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Okay, can you make it into three short things? No,
you can't.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You know, I would say that the macro focuses that.
I mean, at the holiday season, I do a little
bit of everything, but I really like the development and
design of product. So when it comes to Bissingers specifically,
we really like to lean on the recipe book from
eighteen ninety nine to make sure that the core recipe
comes from there or if it's if it's close. We
have learned over the years that the customer base loves
(00:39):
new products, so we're obsessed with new product development right now.
So part of that works. I work with an illustrator,
I work with the photographer, I work with the designer.
I work with that whole team where we create our packaging,
our designs, our catalogs, the website. And then I connect
with the candy kitchen and I said, okay, let's make
some samples together. And I'm a candy maker by Trey.
(01:00):
So I grew up in the candy kitchen.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So sometimes what a life.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's amazing, it really is. It's it's the most fun
you can have. I mean, the holidays are crazy and
there's always a million things going on. But at the
end of the day, we always think about, like we're
helping out our team in the warehouse right now. My brother,
sister and I get there in the morning and you
get the stack of orders and you know, imagine Arima
paper of orders, and we just go through those before
we start our ten hour shift.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
But every page is a different city and state. It's Texas,
it's New York, it's California, it's Colorado, it's Illinois, it's
Saint Louis, it's you know, and then it's Rhode Island,
you know, and you just go through that and you
do it again, and you're like, this is amazing. You know,
we're creating this for them. Yeah, And so that really
(01:48):
to me feels all of it. So I and I
take that data too. I you know, as I'm we're
helping pack orders and I can kind of just compile
it all. I can see what's selling, what's not selling,
and we were just talking the other day. I said,
we're really doing a lot of business with our chocolate
petty force. We should do more of that ooh yes,
and more flavors, more seasonality, And that's just because we've
seen so much you know, of them sell through the
(02:10):
website and catalog recently as we're picking packing order, so
that sometimes you just even though you might get that
number at the end of a season in an Excel spreadsheet,
it's not as effective until you actually see it for yourself.
So really really stay involved in the business, really love
product development, really working with the team, but also maintaining
the national sales team, so we work you know about
(02:30):
Bussengers has been in Saint Louis for about almost one
hundred years. We're on your ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Wait, you have to say, because you started with that
whole eighteen hundred, this is the oldest.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oldest as far as we know, the oldest chocolate brand
in the world.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, I tried to look up anything older and I
couldn't find anything.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So the first businessers starts in the sixteen hundreds, but
they were pointed as the confistutor imperial, which in English
means confectioner to the Empire in sixteen sixty eight in Paris.
So we don't know if they like opened up shop
on a Monday, the King's people stop by on a Tuesday,
They're like, this is good. I want you to be
(03:08):
in the Royal Chocolate here, or.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Had this is cool the tar they said it French?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Or did they like do this for twenty years and
start in sixteen fifties and then all of a sudden,
after a generation of candy making, it somehow got to
the Palace of Versailles. Either way, I think three hundred
fifty years is a good starting point. I would say,
so we're okay with that. We're okay if we're off
by ten years, you know, but sixteen sixty eight's really
the start of how we you know, we start Bussingers
(03:38):
Out moved to the United States in eighteen forty five,
and then made the greatest decision in nineteen twenty seven
to move to Saint Louis, which is where we're here today.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I love this so much because you are throughout the
world online and yet right here is where you make
the product itself, the messages.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
It literally is handmade. It's hand decorated, it's handmade, it's
hand packed. I mean, you know, Bissinger's full name is
Bissinger's hand Crafted Chocolate, hear, and we are the ultimate
handcrafted chocolate here. There is no other company of our size,
truly that handcrafts and does what we do.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I believe that I've never heard I've not seen of one.
And I was just talking about on the radio show
I do, the morning show. I was just saying, we
just had this thing. Is what could you what could
you not live without? I said chocolate. I could live
without my phone, live without TV. I could not live
without chocolate.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
My wife would say I couldn't live without my phone,
but I also agree I could not live with her.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I couldn't live without it.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
We were joking life without chocolate, like we were joking,
and this is you know, it's like a you had
to joke in twenty twenty when COVID was happening like
March and twenty twenty, because we had just bought Bissingers
in twenty nineteen, so it came with a big expense,
a big loan, a lot more people, of much larger overhead,
and in twenty nineteen it was a ramble to make
everything work and keep the customer experience perfect. Wow, we
(05:04):
believe we did so. Then twenty twenty, we felt coming
into January twenty twenty, like, ah, this is gonna be
our year. We did it. Now it's time to build
and you know, go out tomorrow. We were flying out
to San Francisco for this massive trade show which we
did in January of twenty twenty, which debuted the new
product line, debuted the brands together, and of course we
got back to Saint Louis and then the world shutdown
(05:25):
and all of that follow up on away that year,
but we were in by March. We were thinking like,
oh my gosh, what's going to happen. But then we
were just kind of internally joking like it's okay. We
got a quarter million pounds of milk chocolate here sitting
if you will survive on that, we can eat chocolate
for a while if we have to. That's all we have.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
We have chocolate here. I'll trade you chocolate for paper.
I would have done it. I would sit here, take
some toilet paper off. I need chocolate. So I mean,
this is the history of Messengers. I mean it's very
interesting because Saint Louis does have a big hair. You
know France history, even the wine. When it comes down
(06:04):
to the wine people. A lot of people don't know this, But.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
We supplied France, Yes we did. That was I mean?
And that that's an incredible story. It should be told more.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I totally agree with you, and I try to tell
it as much as I can. And so now we've
got the art of chocolate, which hope people always think France,
well they think chocolate right, Well.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
They should because that's where we started exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And that recipe all these hundreds of years is here
in Saint Louis. This just blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, and so the last recipe book we have from
the bissengers' families from eighteen ninety nine, and it is
in French.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Did you just speak?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I translated. I have a sister that almost speaks it fluently.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I would if I was thrown in the middle of Paris,
I'd be in trouble. Luckily, today it's a whole different world.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You have a translator now you do.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But like if it was twenty years ago, i'd be
I wouldn't survive. But luckily I have a sibling because
my other sister and I and my parents are all
involved in the business and we have it. The recipes
were translated bit, but the recipe book itself it's still
you know, it's black leather bound. It's you know, it's
frayed a little bit. So we we touched it, we
looked at it, we put it in a safe I
(07:14):
would do. And that's and that's how you know, because
we have we have it all in our system. But
some of the recipes. You know, what's so great about
the recipe book about messingers is that most recipes are
one dimensional. For example, take these five ingredients and do
something with it, whether you cook it, mix it, blended,
puree it, whatever. Messengers is not that way. It's like
(07:38):
raspberry caramel. Take fresh raspberries and make cook here. So
here's the recipe to make the raspberry puree. Set that aside,
and then it's like here's the recipe to make the
French fond it. Set that aside. So then you take
those two you make take your French fond it, take
your fresh raspberry pure and you cook that together as
a second step the second day, and then you have
(08:01):
to mold in shape it. We start casting, which is
one hundred year old technology about forming and shape in
our candy centers and then dip in chocolate and then packet,
so our ingredients have sub ingredients to it. So that's
where that authenticity of the flavor comes in because it's
so clean and pure.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
The beauty is you guys do all the work. We
just have to. You could order online, you can go
with the stores if you're here. And of course this
podcast goes all over the world. You know that, so
if you will happen to be listening, you're my cousin
in Sweden or in England, where you think you have
good chocolate. My dad's from England. You don't. I'm sorry,
we have better chocolate. Sorry, I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I mean, I'm biased, so I always feel that way.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, I mean, but it's true. And my dad's coming
to visit. So when he tastes the messengers and I'm
not sent to him any yet because I said, no,
you're going to wait and come here, try it where
it's from, where.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
It's made, it's made fresh.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Absolutely, yeah he will. He's like me, a chocolate person.
He's going to go cad glory. What's that you? And
I think that a lot of it is the fact
that you have the recipes for so long ago, and
how is it that you keep these timeless and yet
still invent new ways? How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You know? One of the greatest things that ever happened
to us in candy in chocolate was in two thousand
and nine we started working with a team. We bought
a candy company that we worked with the team, and
they're head candy maker. Was a Bissenger's candy maker for
a long time, and his father in law was Bussenger's
(09:36):
head candymaker for almost fifty years.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
His father in law's father was Carl Bissinger's candymaker.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Wow. So keeping it all.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So and from Carl Bissinger to Floyd Otto, to Marly
Otto to Brian Klick. Myself and my brother and my
sister have trained under Brian. We still work with Brian.
He's been he been our head candymaker since two thousand
and nine. And so this is way before we ever
thought we don't bssengers or buy Bussengers. He just taught
us here's the right way to make candy. And we
(10:10):
develop recipes together for chocolate, chocolate chocolate. From two thousand
and nine to twenty nineteen and we did great things.
We're still doing great things with the chocolate chocolate chocolate.
When the opportunity to buy Bissengers happened, I said, listen,
there's no one, in my humble opinion that knows the
authentic original Bissengers like us, because we have the lineage
of the candy maker and that's how we learned and trained,
(10:33):
and that to me is one of the most important things.
And so we have you know, and I can. It's
not just with chocolate. Chocolate's very you know, the recipe
is very important, but it's really a third of you know,
like the reason the product tastes, it's like one third
of the reason. The recipes one third, the ingredients she
uses one third, and then the technique of making it
(10:55):
is one third. If one of those is off, like
I can, because the recipe is binary sugar butter, you know, cream,
but if you use really low end butter, because the
brands that Carl Bistingers used don't exist anymore, you know,
for example, so they didn't say use this specific brand butter.
It just said use five pounds of butter, so premium
(11:15):
ingredients and we use the entire world as our marketplace,
literally from anywhere we'll go to find the finest ingredients.
And so the candy maker's technique, the ingredients themselves, and
the recipe. We bring those three together at bussengers And
I think that's what makes it exceptional.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
M I think you're I think it makes sense to me,
and the fact that it's it's it's also the love
and the passion that you can't see, but I do
believe that you can feel and taste and the passion
that people get when they have that chocolate. I can't
(11:52):
imagine what it must be like for you to know
that all over the world, somebody could be taking you
by and you're just changing their day right then.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And there one of my head guys in the warehouse
the other day some you know, we're shipping a trailer
of day of packages. I mean, it's the volume right now,
this time of year is crazy. And some some orders
got returned and there was a couple of boxes that
were damaged. And you get orders return all the time
just for wrong address or labels torn or whatever. And
he got upset. He said, that really upsets me because
(12:21):
I don't want anyone to ever receive a box' Bssenger's
chocolate's crumpled because it's a it's an experience when you
receive that, and I don't want the box to be damaged.
And of course it was. It wasn't our fault. But
that level of passion in the team to me, you know,
if I say that, that's one thing, but when when
this team says that to me, that's so important and
so great.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You've created a great team, obviously a family team. And
speaking of if you go online, obviously it's it's bissengers
dot com. It's not hard to find. You could see
all that. The history is amazing. You can find retail boutiques.
But a lot of people, of course, they go online
because you are all over. But you have so many
different beautiful boxes alone litter keeps sake. I mean, I'm
(13:04):
looking at the Spirit of Saint Louis Paris sixteen hundred
USA eighteen forty five. I mean that box right there.
I wouldn't want to like touch it. Of course I
would eat the chocolate inside then keep it.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
So we had we had this idea. Someone told us
one time, they said, you know, it would be great
do a Saint Louis box. And I had sometimes ideas,
you know, their binary like great, let's do it. But
then this one, it just percolated for a while. And
so if you look at the back of that, we've
as a food manufacturer, we make friends with other you
know a lot of other food companies and food breed. Yes,
(13:38):
And so I don't think it was even I don't
think it was my idea. I think it was my
brother or sisters. We say, what if we create a collection,
you know, bring in So we've never done anything even
with the two brands that we own and we also
own Mavrocos, the three brands that we own.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, we've never done anything together. We've always kept the
brains independent because they have their own recipes, their own
cutomer based, their own chocolate, their own so we've never
done anything together. That was number one. And then we said,
what if we bring in like the you know, some
great food brands that can complement chocolate. And so it
went down this. We put together this list and had
reached out to them. So like, for example, you're going
(14:13):
to see in there like I red hot.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Riplets, Yes, very well known in Saint Louis called these coffee. Yes,
Old v and say Louis, this is brilliant.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And so it's all of their ingredients or flavor profiles
in this. So we did one for Bissingers, one for
chocolate chocolate chocolate, one for my Rocos, and then we
brought in for this this collection there were five additional spaces.
The fits is root beer truffle, which is just amazing.
I bet that red hot riplets seasoning on top of
a caramel gust Is Pretzel. I mean, you can't go
(14:44):
down a city street without seeing it Gus's Pretzel stand,
you know, especially the summertime at.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
The ball party.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
So we grew up, we would always go see my
dad at work and on the way to our original
store on chip One next to Ted Drew's, there was
a Gus's Pretzel guy and we would see him every
day for my entire childhood. So to have the Gus's
Pretzel pretzel salt on top of a caramel to us
really was awesome. And then Companion we do with this
(15:09):
chocolate gooey butter cake with Companion where we sell it
and they sell it. It's got companions guey butter cake
and our chocolate. So it was like, well, let's make
a truffle out of that. They were my first that's brilliant. Yeah,
and then call these coffee, you know, phenomenal coffee roasted
just right down the street.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Mavroccos. What is mave Roccos again.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So Mavroccos Messengers goes back to nineteen twenty seven, but
actually Mavroccos started in nineteen thirteen in Saint Louis and
he came he was a Greek immigrant that came to
the United States or to Saint Louis nineteen oh four
the World's Fair and opened up an ice cream stand,
and then eventually nineteen thirteen opened up a candy store,
(15:47):
and he had about nineteen stores, and then they sold
out nineteen eighty four. So we bought the Mavrocco's brand back,
and my dad in nineteen eighty four actually bought the
recipe book. So some original recipes like the Heavenly hash
and the molasses puff, that was all Mavrocco's creation.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I had no idea that. So I've been a fan
of chocolate chocolate chocolate for a long time. I had
no idea you guys are chocolate chocolate chocolate.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yes, So my parents started chocolate Chocolate chocolate and they
we had one store next to Tenderies that was the
original chip Pall locations. The store is still there today.
It was a candy kitchen in the back. Okay, my
dad founded he was he was from Saint Louis, my
mom was from Saint Louis. And he went to school
in Ohio and found a job working at a warehouse
(16:32):
for candy company as a college job. Wow, and was like,
this is really cool. And then they said, well, hey,
if you want to learn other parts of the business.
So over a few years he learned manufacturing, warehouse, retail
in the candy kitchen, even stayed up there after college,
and they wanted to make him one of their main guys.
(16:56):
But there was just one problem. It was Ohio, not
Saint Louis, and he was from here and what it back.
But he had kind of told me said, listen, guys,
I'm engaged. My wife's from Saint Louis. She doesn't really
want to leave Saint Louis. I'm from Saint Louis. I
think I want to go back and start my own
And this was the seventies, late eight or early eighties,
so they weren't. There was no like competition. You know.
(17:17):
Now we have social media, we have we have so
many things to keep states much closer, but Ohio to
Saint Louis was pretty far apart.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's like a whole different you know. Yeah, Tree, it's
what I.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Said back then. Yeah, we'll be happy to get you going.
We'll help you get started. And so my dad started
with one little candy store. He worked open and close,
my mom worked in the retail, he worked in the back,
one part time employee. They had another family member that
helped out as another part time employee. He always reminds
me to make sure I mentioned twenty two percent interest
(17:46):
rates was his first loan. Wow. So it was very
small and then that was the business until ninety eight
where we opened up a second store in downtown Kirkwood
and then we started adding more stores. But the really
cool thing is my brother, sister and I all liked
the business and wanted to be involved in it. And
there was this kind of inflection point that my dad
had met. He said, you know, I love that you
(18:09):
all want to be in the business, and this is
you know, a dream absolutely, but business one on one,
we don't have enough business here to support five families.
We need to grow. And so he said, you know
this is you're gonna you're gonna get paid. What you know,
the next employee that's been here is being paid. You know,
(18:31):
you're not going to get.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You're not getting you're not getting family member execut salary.
And you have to pay for your chocolate.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
This is what this is what I got the chocolate
for free.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
They did.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
There was some fringe benefits, but the you know, this
is what we pay someone that comes into the store.
If you want to make more money, go find it.
And so build the business, build the business. And so
we tried everything, and it was like three things at once.
It was wholesale and this was it was knocking on doors,
(19:02):
just knocking on doors at the tourist attractions, at the
grocery stores. And then and then we got product. And
then we saw what work and what didn't work. And
you have to be very quick and reactionary when you
know everything's on the line. And so the big one
pound gift boxes, which stilled really well in the candy store,
does not translate at the Missouri Botanical Guarding gift shop.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
You know, no one wants to come in. It's been
thirty five dollars on a gift box at a museum.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Gifts I would, right, I would.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So you need like a little chocolate bar or a
four piece back or something, you know, five ten bucks.
So we learned to develop that program and then it
just matured and mature and matured. We created an e
commerce website because this is going back, you know, two
thousand and five thou six, So we did. We worked
on that, try to work on more corporate and it
wasn't like, you know, my dad wasn't like, well, I'm
going to give you all the money in the world
(19:50):
to open retail stores. No, it was there's no budget
figured out right, you you want this to happen, do it?
And so we had to work with what can we
do inside our operation? And then I mean I remember
the first trade show we did, and it was in PA.
It was a national show. It was one thousand dollars
to go to the show. And if there's airfarreer and
other things on top. Fighting to get that money was
(20:16):
the hardest thing I have ever done, just to get
that approved. It was easier to get the construction loan
for this multi into.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
The expansion, expansion.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
We're going through than that first thousand dollars for the
trade show.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But had you not worked that hard, Oh, I've no regret.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
That's the best education.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
And again Dan and his siblings you were talking about,
you know, you go in three in the morning, you're
up going in there, you're working ten hours and that's
a lot of work. You might love what you do,
but it's still a lot. You put a lot of
plus putting tears into it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
There's the you know, the holidays are so important because
it's you know, the people are so traditional, especially in
Saint Louis, and that whatever it is, whether it's listener's
care immense or whether it's you know, molasses puff or
turtles or glasses, carmelales or bever, the assortments that is
so important to the recipient. That and the holidays. You know,
(21:14):
it's it's November December, so we just we really go
one hundred and ten percent those holidays.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And then you'll see Dan and January on a beach somewhere.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I'm kidding, there's Valentine's, there's Easter, and then after that
we never stop. So the plant usually produces the same
amount of product every day, even at the so even
in July. What we're doing is we're making because we
have national customers, and so the first distribution of Fall
may have to ship August first, and then Christmas may
have to ship September first.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
And Valentine's at all that Valentine's.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Is already out the door on the national accounts, and
so on the national scale, we're on a different schedule.
So we may be making Fall in May and June
for national distribution, and then we may be making Fall
two days before Thanksgiving forward, you know, so we can
spread it out. If we look at the calendar very
you know, linearly, we're busy twelve months of the year.
(22:06):
The difference is we don't have it all going out
the door in a rush in July, so the pressure
is down, and when the pressure is down, it seems
a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That's good if you know. So, I do want to
bring up the expansion that you're doing. If that's okay,
can you talk about it?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Absolutely, yeah. Before I do that, though, before we do that,
I do have to ask you if there is somebody,
a young person, maybe nineteen twenty, and they want to
do something like what you do what would be some
advice you would give them.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
You know, my parents were always I remember being like
ten years old and we had we would be raking
the leaves in the front yard, and you know, one
time I was like, this is the neighbors. Get it
done for them, you know, and my parents were like,
I don't care, We're doing it. And just from such
a young age, they taught us like, you can't be
(23:00):
afraid of hard work. And so many and I don't
want to generalize anyone, but so many people that I
see today are looking for like the easiest way to
do it, or what's the Like They'll come into our
factory like, well, I need handstriping it. You know they
have robots for that? Are they automatic decorating machines for that?
I'm like, yeah, that's great in all, but when you
take a person away, you take two eyes of quality
(23:21):
control away, and our product might pass through twenty sets,
you know, sets of eyes before if I took if
I put yeah, we can invest in the automation for that,
and the product would look the same and taste the same.
But the the you know, the quality control part goes away.
And so they're always looking for like the end. I
just you can't be afraid of hard work. You have
to get in there. You have to and you have
(23:41):
to do it without an ego. If the if something's
spilled on the floor, go get a mop and I'll
do that. I who knows, I could go back to
the production floor when I walk in in an hour
and there might be a spill on the floor and
I'll clean it up. Like there's no there's no job
too big, there's no job too small. You've got to
learn business. I don't know how to run a business remotely,
(24:04):
and some businesses you can, but I just feel like
there's you know, on the job training and feeling it.
Feeling the business is the best way to learn it,
grow it and build.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It and and be liveing the on comfort zone every
once in a while where you grow.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, and and there, I mean, there have been so
many times we've been in like you know, you feel
bogged down and you feel behind, or you're you know,
five thousand orders behind, or your you know, orders are
piling up and whatever it is, and you have two options.
You can quit or you can push through. And you know,
if you quit and no one wins, the customer doesn't win.
The bill doesn't the bills don't get paid. You know,
you lose it whatever it is. But you know, there's
(24:42):
like the old country song, if you're going through hell,
keep on going, and we gets that little that little
anecdote gets you through the holidays because you just you
have to push through.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
You don't have a choice. Yeah, you're raised, right, And
speaking of raising, you're raising. It's been raised, I should say,
you're digging. Yes, you're expanding. This is really exciting. So
this is your facility and not in Kirkwad is the
hill the hill? I thinking, of course the hill. Did
(25:12):
you say thirty thousand, So.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
We have thirty and then currently twenty eighteen, we bought
building two doors down which gave us another twenty five
and we're using you know, thirty plus twenty five is
fifty five. We're using seventy of that fifty five, using everything.
So there was this. We've been growing very well and
we're very proud of our growth and expansion. And you know,
(25:38):
like I think, you know, probably fifteen percent of our
businesses inside Saint louis good. The vast majority is on
the national scale. And we had maxed out the facility
down the street. We maxed out the main plant. We
looked at going up, and engineers and contractors said you can,
but you'd have to shut your operation down for six
months while we built on top of it, So that
(25:59):
became not an op. We looked at every angle. We
really did not want to move. We love the hill,
we love our space, we love everything about it, and
we put a lot of onneion into it. We put
a lot of energy into it. We have some big
machines from Europe. They can't move because it would just
cost as much to move them as by a new
and so we're built into that. And so we started
kind of gently knocking on the neighbor's door, Hey, would
(26:21):
you be in you know, you want to sell. Yeah,
So you know, at first it was thanks, but no thanks,
and if the second was maybe possibly, and then it
became then it became okay, we decided not to and
then we hit kind of this critical like, oh my gosh,
we're probably gonna have to move, this is going to
be terrible. Maybe well let's ask one last time, right,
And they came back and said, oh, yeah, we've been
meaning to reach out to you. Actually there is an
(26:42):
interest level now because and they have. They were a
tool and die up and they have multiple ones across
the country. They said, yeah, we're finding that we can
probably merge this business into another. And so it was
like great, now when you say that, though there's no
deal to be had, They're like, here's our price.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
By the way, and so we because they knew you
wanted it.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
They knew we wanted it, but they were fair. But
you know, there's no there was no there was no deal, right,
so we bought the building and as and as this
negotiation was going on, my brother, sister and I would
sit down and be like, okay, well, what's the first
thing we need? Okay, more manufacturing, absolutely, so what can
we probably build? We coul probably put about thirty thousand
(27:23):
square feet on the property, Okay, so then what else
can we do? And we do a lot of factory
tours every day. But we've you know, in the last
two years, because we did it started in twenty twelve
and then we had to pause in twenty twenty unfortunately
because COVID and then we brought tours back in twenty two,
probably because it was about two years we had to stop.
(27:44):
And so in twenty twenty two, we've had, we had
more people in the plant, more equipment because of passengers,
and so we couldn't give as much as big of tours.
We didn't have as much space, and so for the
last two years we've been it's been hard to get
a tour with us because they sell out so fast.
And so we say, Okay, we have this demand for tourism,
(28:04):
but we can't satisfy it. We need to we need
to do more tourism. We would love to have more
people on the campus. We love to have more people
coming through because if you go through the factory and
see how we hand decorate and hand pack and see
all everything going through, it's the best marketing you can
get on the brand, absolutely and people really love Happy
and you get a free free chocolate sample on the tour.
So it was like, okay, well, what's number one. Let's
(28:27):
have something for people. People are waiting because we can
take twenty five at a time. Let's let's have something
for people to do. And maybe we do, Like we
didn't want to be a full restaurant, but we were like,
what's the little bit lighter version, Maybe a cafe coffee
iced tea right light bites sandwiches, our friends at Volty
Salami or down the street like I you know, I
(28:48):
was like, I want to do Vulpy Salamia.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I reach out to all the local businesses.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Oh yeah, this is going to be this will be
the local food emporium. Like all of those brands that
you saw in that samples box. We had like all
already talked him about our cafe's fantastic. So I was like, oh,
companion for my bread and uh, you know, so all
of these things. So we were just like, hey, by
the way, you want to be on So it's going
to be all of these local brands. Where we were thinking, okay,
(29:12):
we'll start with you know, a full coffee bar, espresso drinks,
you know, get the espresso machine, and then we'll do
drip coffee and then iced tea. And then it was like, well,
wait a second, what about birthday parties? And its great
because I have young kids. I have three young kins
under six, so two, four and six. My brother has
four kids under I think.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
You're thinking kid birthday parties.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
We're a kid birthday parties. And as I go on
kid birthday parties, you know what parents like to do.
They like a beer and why thank you. We're like, well,
why don't we do right, that's why they put a
bar in there. So we said. I talked to someone
and they said, well, you know, liquor license, there's a
lot of steps. You should hire consultants. So we did
and they phenomenal. And so I asked the question one day,
(29:53):
is we're going through the process of the liquor license?
I said, by the way, because we're applying for uh,
you know, there's I think four stages, but wine and
beer is what we started with because that's what we
figured we'd serve. And I said, by the way, what's
the cost in the city to add liquor? And he
gave me the price and it wasn't a big difference,
and I was like, so be you know, usually like
(30:15):
it's a democracy. I talked to my brother and sister
about everything. I made a unilateral decision that day that
we're going for liquor.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Good for you. I am chocolate martini.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So that I was like, well, let's have We're going
to put it in the event space so you can
have part. But then I just kept it, just kept thinking,
I'm like, I don't want to see as a parent
a bar for my kid's birthday party. Right, so I say,
let's we'll put a partition up or something. I was like,
oh my god, private bar, partition, We're going to open
a speakeasy.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And then at that point we should have paused and
maybe thot like how much is this going to cost?
And how much additional staff is going to need? But
we just know we so let's just go for it.
Let's put with the press release and say we're gonna
have a coffee shop, cafe and bar.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
And that's what we did, and that's what we're building.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
We're so excited. I can't tell you how much R
and D has been going into the perfect because it's
of course gonna have a chocolate spin on it, chocolate
themed cocktails. We'll have a standard classic menu as well.
See I love cocktails. I do tooied are you really? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So I'm a huge fan of just the whole. I
can't cook worth beans, but I could make a drink.
So when you bring chocolate anywhere into a drink, Oh that's.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
All I think. I mean, I think of like you
should see how many different bidders and how many different
you know, like Vermouth Matters, like the brand new were
and so yeah, so we've been a lot of research
has been going.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Into I'm excited to try them all.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Y Well. One of the i mean, one of the
things in the peace in that Saint Louis box we
called the King Louis Carmel. There's this cocktail called the
King lou the fourteenth and it's the shamboard and gin
and then so we made it one day in our
R and D sessions and how fun would that be?
So we're like, this is delicious. This should be a caramel.
So you know, candy makers, candy makers, we're all now mixologists.
(32:02):
We made the King Louis Carmel and that it has
the spirits in there. The great thing is when you're
cooking the product and flashes out, so it's safe to
consume without a liquor license and it's not going to
get anyone drunka.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
That's one thing. I remember my dad loving the the
you know, spirit filled chocolates he would get from England
from his hometown.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I don't know who some of those actually are. You
have the you know five percent ours are less than
they were strong. Yeah, those are your European the imports,
they'll get you, yes, but a kid can eat ours
and they run. You know, it's not communisue we tested,
but the you know, so that a lot of these
collections are coming from us tasting different cocktails and you know,
pairing it with chocolate. We're going to definitely expand into
(32:40):
the chocolate liquor world on a much bigger scale as well.
We're about to launch, so you're going to be the
first in the world to hear a gin and tonic
bar with a craft gin distillery.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
You know, that's my favorite drink. Tonic is my alters
go to.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
I run two different spectrums. I go Manhattan gin and tonic,
and then if I fash we're to bring a triangle
out of it. It's dirty martini.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Oh, yes, that's a dirty Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Say I always say, I'll take a dirty martini. Three
olives make it filthy. Yeah, that's like that's filter.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You want the brine.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
That's the drink order right there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
They and a good chocolate martini. Yes, they're not easy
to get. Sometimes they just taste wrong.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I agree. I think the secret to life is take
our chocolate predris and then pret on the glass and
then grind our.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Chocolate on top Ooh I love that. And speaking of
so if you are interested in ordering or going or
finding all the information more history, there's so much and
I wish we're gonna have to do this again because
there's just so much to talk about. Bissingers dot com.
It's really easy to find. You could order online, get
great gift ideas, which is fantastic. It's just to me
(33:52):
it's year round.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Oh for sure. And I mean we have so many seasons.
I mean we make up over nine hundred products just
at Bissingers alone, so we'll you know, we'll have from
Christmas to Valentine's to Eastern to Mother's Day, to raspberry
season in July to Father's Day in summer. It's just
it's amazing, and that's what keeps it so fun because
every day is just something new.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Well, I'm excited when in a few months from now
or however long. I won't put a date on it.
We're trying when when it opens, you know, to get
that code, the secret code to the speakeasy, and there
could be weddings there. You just never know what could happen.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I know, it's it's gonna be can grow. We're so many,
so many fun things I think are going to come
out of that. Yeah, but then we still, you know,
have to make sure because we're still chocolate people, so like, yeah,
but I think that side of the business is going
to be awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
I think it's going to grow really fast. I think
you'll you'll be shocked at.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
We we're building it for. Like, we really sat down
and said, like we you know, the first set of plans,
like we don't have enough bathrooms. We need to make
sure that we can accommodate this, and we have it.
So we really tried to sit like we're have an
outside patio as well, and then we expanded that. And
at first the first speakeasy rendition was a little tight.
We actually took an office building that we have and
(35:05):
taped it off and built it, put temporary walls up
because on the blueprint it's.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
This big, yeah, and so you can't really tell.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I walked in it and I said, this is wrong.
We're going to make a huge mistake and it's going
to be way too expensive and way too hard to fix.
So I went back to the architect in the constructed contractor,
I said, are we too late? And I said no,
So I said, okay, well we need to. We need to,
you know. So all of those things were very much
because I love going to bars, I love going to restaurants,
I love going to coffee shops, and so I wanted
to make sure that our experience is going to be
first class.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Atmosphere is everything. Yes, So Bassengers again, dot Com and
dan Abell, thank you so much for your time. You
have no idea how just excited I am because it's
another local, amazing business putting Saint Louis on the map,
which we really are so special of a city we are,
and thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Thank you,
We have history in the house. Dan Abel from Bissengers Chocolates.
I wish I had my applause button on me because
I'm really excited about this. First and foremost, I have
to ask, what do you do there?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I don't know if we have enough time.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Okay, can you make it into three short things? No,
you can't.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You know, I would say that the macro focuses that.
I mean, at the holiday season, I do a little
bit of everything, but I really like the development and
design of product. So when it comes to Bissingers specifically,
we really like to lean on the recipe book from
eighteen ninety nine to make sure that the core recipe
comes from there or if it's if it's close. We
have learned over the years that the customer base loves
(00:39):
new products, so we're obsessed with new product development right now.
So part of that works. I work with an illustrator,
I work with the photographer, I work with the designer.
I work with that whole team where we create our packaging,
our designs, our catalogs, the website. And then I connect
with the candy kitchen and I said, okay, let's make
some samples together. And I'm a candy maker by Trey.
(01:00):
So I grew up in the candy kitchen.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So sometimes what a life.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's amazing, it really is. It's it's the most fun
you can have. I mean, the holidays are crazy and
there's always a million things going on. But at the
end of the day, we always think about, like we're
helping out our team in the warehouse right now. My brother,
sister and I get there in the morning and you
get the stack of orders and you know, imagine Arima
paper of orders, and we just go through those before
we start our ten hour shift.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
But every page is a different city and state. It's Texas,
it's New York, it's California, it's Colorado, it's Illinois, it's
Saint Louis, it's you know, and then it's Rhode Island,
you know, and you just go through that and you
do it again, and you're like, this is amazing. You know,
we're creating this for them. Yeah, And so that really
(01:48):
to me feels all of it. So I and I
take that data too. I you know, as I'm we're
helping pack orders and I can kind of just compile
it all. I can see what's selling, what's not selling,
and we were just talking the other day. I said,
we're really doing a lot of business with our chocolate
petty force. We should do more of that ooh yes,
and more flavors, more seasonality, And that's just because we've
seen so much you know, of them sell through the
(02:10):
website and catalog recently as we're picking packing order, so
that sometimes you just even though you might get that
number at the end of a season in an Excel spreadsheet,
it's not as effective until you actually see it for yourself.
So really really stay involved in the business, really love
product development, really working with the team, but also maintaining
the national sales team, so we work you know about
(02:30):
Bussengers has been in Saint Louis for about almost one
hundred years. We're on your ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Wait, you have to say, because you started with that
whole eighteen hundred, this is the oldest.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oldest as far as we know, the oldest chocolate brand
in the world.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, I tried to look up anything older and I
couldn't find anything.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So the first businessers starts in the sixteen hundreds, but
they were pointed as the confistutor imperial, which in English
means confectioner to the Empire in sixteen sixty eight in Paris.
So we don't know if they like opened up shop
on a Monday, the King's people stop by on a Tuesday,
They're like, this is good. I want you to be
(03:08):
in the Royal Chocolate here, or.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Had this is cool the tar they said it French?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Or did they like do this for twenty years and
start in sixteen fifties and then all of a sudden,
after a generation of candy making, it somehow got to
the Palace of Versailles. Either way, I think three hundred
fifty years is a good starting point. I would say,
so we're okay with that. We're okay if we're off
by ten years, you know, but sixteen sixty eight's really
the start of how we you know, we start Bussingers
(03:38):
Out moved to the United States in eighteen forty five,
and then made the greatest decision in nineteen twenty seven
to move to Saint Louis, which is where we're here today.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I love this so much because you are throughout the
world online and yet right here is where you make
the product itself, the messages.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
It literally is handmade. It's hand decorated, it's handmade, it's
hand packed. I mean, you know, Bissinger's full name is
Bissinger's hand Crafted Chocolate, hear, and we are the ultimate
handcrafted chocolate here. There is no other company of our size,
truly that handcrafts and does what we do.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I believe that I've never heard I've not seen of one.
And I was just talking about on the radio show
I do, the morning show. I was just saying, we
just had this thing. Is what could you what could
you not live without? I said chocolate. I could live
without my phone, live without TV. I could not live
without chocolate.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
My wife would say I couldn't live without my phone,
but I also agree I could not live with her.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I couldn't live without it.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
We were joking life without chocolate, like we were joking,
and this is you know, it's like a you had
to joke in twenty twenty when COVID was happening like
March and twenty twenty, because we had just bought Bissingers
in twenty nineteen, so it came with a big expense,
a big loan, a lot more people, of much larger overhead,
and in twenty nineteen it was a ramble to make
everything work and keep the customer experience perfect. Wow, we
(05:04):
believe we did so. Then twenty twenty, we felt coming
into January twenty twenty, like, ah, this is gonna be
our year. We did it. Now it's time to build
and you know, go out tomorrow. We were flying out
to San Francisco for this massive trade show which we
did in January of twenty twenty, which debuted the new
product line, debuted the brands together, and of course we
got back to Saint Louis and then the world shutdown
(05:25):
and all of that follow up on away that year,
but we were in by March. We were thinking like,
oh my gosh, what's going to happen. But then we
were just kind of internally joking like it's okay. We
got a quarter million pounds of milk chocolate here sitting
if you will survive on that, we can eat chocolate
for a while if we have to. That's all we have.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
We have chocolate here. I'll trade you chocolate for paper.
I would have done it. I would sit here, take
some toilet paper off. I need chocolate. So I mean,
this is the history of Messengers. I mean it's very
interesting because Saint Louis does have a big hair. You
know France history, even the wine. When it comes down
(06:04):
to the wine people. A lot of people don't know this, But.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
We supplied France, Yes we did. That was I mean?
And that that's an incredible story. It should be told more.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I totally agree with you, and I try to tell
it as much as I can. And so now we've
got the art of chocolate, which hope people always think France,
well they think chocolate right, Well.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
They should because that's where we started exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And that recipe all these hundreds of years is here
in Saint Louis. This just blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, and so the last recipe book we have from
the bissengers' families from eighteen ninety nine, and it is
in French.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Did you just speak?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I translated. I have a sister that almost speaks it fluently.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I would if I was thrown in the middle of Paris,
I'd be in trouble. Luckily, today it's a whole different world.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You have a translator now you do.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But like if it was twenty years ago, i'd be
I wouldn't survive. But luckily I have a sibling because
my other sister and I and my parents are all
involved in the business and we have it. The recipes
were translated bit, but the recipe book itself it's still
you know, it's black leather bound. It's you know, it's
frayed a little bit. So we we touched it, we
looked at it, we put it in a safe I
(07:14):
would do. And that's and that's how you know, because
we have we have it all in our system. But
some of the recipes. You know, what's so great about
the recipe book about messingers is that most recipes are
one dimensional. For example, take these five ingredients and do
something with it, whether you cook it, mix it, blended,
puree it, whatever. Messengers is not that way. It's like
(07:38):
raspberry caramel. Take fresh raspberries and make cook here. So
here's the recipe to make the raspberry puree. Set that aside,
and then it's like here's the recipe to make the
French fond it. Set that aside. So then you take
those two you make take your French fond it, take
your fresh raspberry pure and you cook that together as
a second step the second day, and then you have
(08:01):
to mold in shape it. We start casting, which is
one hundred year old technology about forming and shape in
our candy centers and then dip in chocolate and then packet,
so our ingredients have sub ingredients to it. So that's
where that authenticity of the flavor comes in because it's
so clean and pure.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
The beauty is you guys do all the work. We
just have to. You could order online, you can go
with the stores if you're here. And of course this
podcast goes all over the world. You know that, so
if you will happen to be listening, you're my cousin
in Sweden or in England, where you think you have
good chocolate. My dad's from England. You don't. I'm sorry,
we have better chocolate. Sorry, I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I mean, I'm biased, so I always feel that way.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, I mean, but it's true. And my dad's coming
to visit. So when he tastes the messengers and I'm
not sent to him any yet because I said, no,
you're going to wait and come here, try it where
it's from, where.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
It's made, it's made fresh.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Absolutely, yeah he will. He's like me, a chocolate person.
He's going to go cad glory. What's that you? And
I think that a lot of it is the fact
that you have the recipes for so long ago, and
how is it that you keep these timeless and yet
still invent new ways? How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You know? One of the greatest things that ever happened
to us in candy in chocolate was in two thousand
and nine we started working with a team. We bought
a candy company that we worked with the team, and
they're head candy maker. Was a Bissenger's candy maker for
a long time, and his father in law was Bussenger's
(09:36):
head candymaker for almost fifty years.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
His father in law's father was Carl Bissinger's candymaker.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Wow. So keeping it all.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So and from Carl Bissinger to Floyd Otto, to Marly
Otto to Brian Klick. Myself and my brother and my
sister have trained under Brian. We still work with Brian.
He's been he been our head candymaker since two thousand
and nine. And so this is way before we ever
thought we don't bssengers or buy Bussengers. He just taught
us here's the right way to make candy. And we
(10:10):
develop recipes together for chocolate, chocolate chocolate. From two thousand
and nine to twenty nineteen and we did great things.
We're still doing great things with the chocolate chocolate chocolate.
When the opportunity to buy Bissengers happened, I said, listen,
there's no one, in my humble opinion that knows the
authentic original Bissengers like us, because we have the lineage
of the candy maker and that's how we learned and trained,
(10:33):
and that to me is one of the most important things.
And so we have you know, and I can. It's
not just with chocolate. Chocolate's very you know, the recipe
is very important, but it's really a third of you know,
like the reason the product tastes, it's like one third
of the reason. The recipes one third, the ingredients she
uses one third, and then the technique of making it
(10:55):
is one third. If one of those is off, like
I can, because the recipe is binary sugar butter, you know, cream,
but if you use really low end butter, because the
brands that Carl Bistingers used don't exist anymore, you know,
for example, so they didn't say use this specific brand butter.
It just said use five pounds of butter, so premium
(11:15):
ingredients and we use the entire world as our marketplace,
literally from anywhere we'll go to find the finest ingredients.
And so the candy maker's technique, the ingredients themselves, and
the recipe. We bring those three together at bussengers And
I think that's what makes it exceptional.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
M I think you're I think it makes sense to me,
and the fact that it's it's it's also the love
and the passion that you can't see, but I do
believe that you can feel and taste and the passion
that people get when they have that chocolate. I can't
(11:52):
imagine what it must be like for you to know
that all over the world, somebody could be taking you
by and you're just changing their day right then.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And there one of my head guys in the warehouse
the other day some you know, we're shipping a trailer
of day of packages. I mean, it's the volume right now,
this time of year is crazy. And some some orders
got returned and there was a couple of boxes that
were damaged. And you get orders return all the time
just for wrong address or labels torn or whatever. And
he got upset. He said, that really upsets me because
(12:21):
I don't want anyone to ever receive a box' Bssenger's
chocolate's crumpled because it's a it's an experience when you
receive that, and I don't want the box to be damaged.
And of course it was. It wasn't our fault. But
that level of passion in the team to me, you know,
if I say that, that's one thing, but when when
this team says that to me, that's so important and
so great.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You've created a great team, obviously a family team. And
speaking of if you go online, obviously it's it's bissengers
dot com. It's not hard to find. You could see
all that. The history is amazing. You can find retail boutiques.
But a lot of people, of course, they go online
because you are all over. But you have so many
different beautiful boxes alone litter keeps sake. I mean, I'm
(13:04):
looking at the Spirit of Saint Louis Paris sixteen hundred
USA eighteen forty five. I mean that box right there.
I wouldn't want to like touch it. Of course I
would eat the chocolate inside then keep it.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
So we had we had this idea. Someone told us
one time, they said, you know, it would be great
do a Saint Louis box. And I had sometimes ideas,
you know, their binary like great, let's do it. But
then this one, it just percolated for a while. And
so if you look at the back of that, we've
as a food manufacturer, we make friends with other you
know a lot of other food companies and food breed. Yes,
(13:38):
And so I don't think it was even I don't
think it was my idea. I think it was my
brother or sisters. We say, what if we create a collection,
you know, bring in So we've never done anything even
with the two brands that we own and we also
own Mavrocos, the three brands that we own.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, we've never done anything together. We've always kept the
brains independent because they have their own recipes, their own
cutomer based, their own chocolate, their own so we've never
done anything together. That was number one. And then we said,
what if we bring in like the you know, some
great food brands that can complement chocolate. And so it
went down this. We put together this list and had
reached out to them. So like, for example, you're going
(14:13):
to see in there like I red hot.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Riplets, Yes, very well known in Saint Louis called these coffee. Yes,
Old v and say Louis, this is brilliant.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And so it's all of their ingredients or flavor profiles
in this. So we did one for Bissingers, one for
chocolate chocolate chocolate, one for my Rocos, and then we
brought in for this this collection there were five additional spaces.
The fits is root beer truffle, which is just amazing.
I bet that red hot riplets seasoning on top of
a caramel gust Is Pretzel. I mean, you can't go
(14:44):
down a city street without seeing it Gus's Pretzel stand,
you know, especially the summertime at.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
The ball party.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
So we grew up, we would always go see my
dad at work and on the way to our original
store on chip One next to Ted Drew's, there was
a Gus's Pretzel guy and we would see him every
day for my entire childhood. So to have the Gus's
Pretzel pretzel salt on top of a caramel to us
really was awesome. And then Companion we do with this
(15:09):
chocolate gooey butter cake with Companion where we sell it
and they sell it. It's got companions guey butter cake
and our chocolate. So it was like, well, let's make
a truffle out of that. They were my first that's brilliant. Yeah,
and then call these coffee, you know, phenomenal coffee roasted
just right down the street.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Mavroccos. What is mave Roccos again.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So Mavroccos Messengers goes back to nineteen twenty seven, but
actually Mavroccos started in nineteen thirteen in Saint Louis and
he came he was a Greek immigrant that came to
the United States or to Saint Louis nineteen oh four
the World's Fair and opened up an ice cream stand,
and then eventually nineteen thirteen opened up a candy store,
(15:47):
and he had about nineteen stores, and then they sold
out nineteen eighty four. So we bought the Mavrocco's brand back,
and my dad in nineteen eighty four actually bought the
recipe book. So some original recipes like the Heavenly hash
and the molasses puff, that was all Mavrocco's creation.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I had no idea that. So I've been a fan
of chocolate chocolate chocolate for a long time. I had
no idea you guys are chocolate chocolate chocolate.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yes, So my parents started chocolate Chocolate chocolate and they
we had one store next to Tenderies that was the
original chip Pall locations. The store is still there today.
It was a candy kitchen in the back. Okay, my
dad founded he was he was from Saint Louis, my
mom was from Saint Louis. And he went to school
in Ohio and found a job working at a warehouse
(16:32):
for candy company as a college job. Wow, and was like,
this is really cool. And then they said, well, hey,
if you want to learn other parts of the business.
So over a few years he learned manufacturing, warehouse, retail
in the candy kitchen, even stayed up there after college,
and they wanted to make him one of their main guys.
(16:56):
But there was just one problem. It was Ohio, not
Saint Louis, and he was from here and what it back.
But he had kind of told me said, listen, guys,
I'm engaged. My wife's from Saint Louis. She doesn't really
want to leave Saint Louis. I'm from Saint Louis. I
think I want to go back and start my own
And this was the seventies, late eight or early eighties,
so they weren't. There was no like competition. You know.
(17:17):
Now we have social media, we have we have so
many things to keep states much closer, but Ohio to
Saint Louis was pretty far apart.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
It's like a whole different you know. Yeah, Tree, it's
what I.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Said back then. Yeah, we'll be happy to get you going.
We'll help you get started. And so my dad started
with one little candy store. He worked open and close,
my mom worked in the retail, he worked in the back,
one part time employee. They had another family member that
helped out as another part time employee. He always reminds
me to make sure I mentioned twenty two percent interest
(17:46):
rates was his first loan. Wow. So it was very
small and then that was the business until ninety eight
where we opened up a second store in downtown Kirkwood
and then we started adding more stores. But the really
cool thing is my brother, sister and I all liked
the business and wanted to be involved in it. And
there was this kind of inflection point that my dad
had met. He said, you know, I love that you
(18:09):
all want to be in the business, and this is
you know, a dream absolutely, but business one on one,
we don't have enough business here to support five families.
We need to grow. And so he said, you know
this is you're gonna you're gonna get paid. What you know,
the next employee that's been here is being paid. You know,
(18:31):
you're not going to get.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You're not getting you're not getting family member execut salary.
And you have to pay for your chocolate.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
This is what this is what I got the chocolate
for free.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
They did.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
There was some fringe benefits, but the you know, this
is what we pay someone that comes into the store.
If you want to make more money, go find it.
And so build the business, build the business. And so
we tried everything, and it was like three things at once.
It was wholesale and this was it was knocking on doors,
(19:02):
just knocking on doors at the tourist attractions, at the
grocery stores. And then and then we got product. And
then we saw what work and what didn't work. And
you have to be very quick and reactionary when you
know everything's on the line. And so the big one
pound gift boxes, which stilled really well in the candy store,
does not translate at the Missouri Botanical Guarding gift shop.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
You know, no one wants to come in. It's been
thirty five dollars on a gift box at a museum.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Gifts I would, right, I would.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So you need like a little chocolate bar or a
four piece back or something, you know, five ten bucks.
So we learned to develop that program and then it
just matured and mature and matured. We created an e
commerce website because this is going back, you know, two
thousand and five thou six, So we did. We worked
on that, try to work on more corporate and it
wasn't like, you know, my dad wasn't like, well, I'm
going to give you all the money in the world
(19:50):
to open retail stores. No, it was there's no budget
figured out right, you you want this to happen, do it?
And so we had to work with what can we
do inside our operation? And then I mean I remember
the first trade show we did, and it was in PA.
It was a national show. It was one thousand dollars
to go to the show. And if there's airfarreer and
other things on top. Fighting to get that money was
(20:16):
the hardest thing I have ever done, just to get
that approved. It was easier to get the construction loan
for this multi into.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
The expansion, expansion.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
We're going through than that first thousand dollars for the
trade show.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But had you not worked that hard, Oh, I've no regret.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
That's the best education.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
And again Dan and his siblings you were talking about,
you know, you go in three in the morning, you're
up going in there, you're working ten hours and that's
a lot of work. You might love what you do,
but it's still a lot. You put a lot of
plus putting tears into it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
There's the you know, the holidays are so important because
it's you know, the people are so traditional, especially in
Saint Louis, and that whatever it is, whether it's listener's
care immense or whether it's you know, molasses puff or
turtles or glasses, carmelales or bever, the assortments that is
so important to the recipient. That and the holidays. You know,
(21:14):
it's it's November December, so we just we really go
one hundred and ten percent those holidays.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
And then you'll see Dan and January on a beach somewhere.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I'm kidding, there's Valentine's, there's Easter, and then after that
we never stop. So the plant usually produces the same
amount of product every day, even at the so even
in July. What we're doing is we're making because we
have national customers, and so the first distribution of Fall
may have to ship August first, and then Christmas may
have to ship September first.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
And Valentine's at all that Valentine's.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Is already out the door on the national accounts, and
so on the national scale, we're on a different schedule.
So we may be making Fall in May and June
for national distribution, and then we may be making Fall
two days before Thanksgiving forward, you know, so we can
spread it out. If we look at the calendar very
you know, linearly, we're busy twelve months of the year.
(22:06):
The difference is we don't have it all going out
the door in a rush in July, so the pressure
is down, and when the pressure is down, it seems
a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
That's good if you know. So, I do want to
bring up the expansion that you're doing. If that's okay,
can you talk about it?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Absolutely, yeah. Before I do that, though, before we do that,
I do have to ask you if there is somebody,
a young person, maybe nineteen twenty, and they want to
do something like what you do what would be some
advice you would give them.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
You know, my parents were always I remember being like
ten years old and we had we would be raking
the leaves in the front yard, and you know, one
time I was like, this is the neighbors. Get it
done for them, you know, and my parents were like,
I don't care, We're doing it. And just from such
a young age, they taught us like, you can't be
(23:00):
afraid of hard work. And so many and I don't
want to generalize anyone, but so many people that I
see today are looking for like the easiest way to
do it, or what's the Like They'll come into our
factory like, well, I need handstriping it. You know they
have robots for that? Are they automatic decorating machines for that?
I'm like, yeah, that's great in all, but when you
take a person away, you take two eyes of quality
(23:21):
control away, and our product might pass through twenty sets,
you know, sets of eyes before if I took if
I put yeah, we can invest in the automation for that,
and the product would look the same and taste the same.
But the the you know, the quality control part goes away.
And so they're always looking for like the end. I
just you can't be afraid of hard work. You have
to get in there. You have to and you have
(23:41):
to do it without an ego. If the if something's
spilled on the floor, go get a mop and I'll
do that. I who knows, I could go back to
the production floor when I walk in in an hour
and there might be a spill on the floor and
I'll clean it up. Like there's no there's no job
too big, there's no job too small. You've got to
learn business. I don't know how to run a business remotely,
(24:04):
and some businesses you can, but I just feel like
there's you know, on the job training and feeling it.
Feeling the business is the best way to learn it,
grow it and build.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It and and be liveing the on comfort zone every
once in a while where you grow.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, and and there, I mean, there have been so
many times we've been in like you know, you feel
bogged down and you feel behind, or you're you know,
five thousand orders behind, or your you know, orders are
piling up and whatever it is, and you have two options.
You can quit or you can push through. And you know,
if you quit and no one wins, the customer doesn't win.
The bill doesn't the bills don't get paid. You know,
you lose it whatever it is. But you know, there's
(24:42):
like the old country song, if you're going through hell,
keep on going, and we gets that little that little
anecdote gets you through the holidays because you just you
have to push through.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
You don't have a choice. Yeah, you're raised, right, And
speaking of raising, you're raising. It's been raised, I should say,
you're digging. Yes, you're expanding. This is really exciting. So
this is your facility and not in Kirkwad is the
hill the hill? I thinking, of course the hill. Did
(25:12):
you say thirty thousand, So.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
We have thirty and then currently twenty eighteen, we bought
building two doors down which gave us another twenty five
and we're using you know, thirty plus twenty five is
fifty five. We're using seventy of that fifty five, using everything.
So there was this. We've been growing very well and
we're very proud of our growth and expansion. And you know,
(25:38):
like I think, you know, probably fifteen percent of our
businesses inside Saint louis good. The vast majority is on
the national scale. And we had maxed out the facility
down the street. We maxed out the main plant. We
looked at going up, and engineers and contractors said you can,
but you'd have to shut your operation down for six
months while we built on top of it, So that
(25:59):
became not an op. We looked at every angle. We
really did not want to move. We love the hill,
we love our space, we love everything about it, and
we put a lot of onneion into it. We put
a lot of energy into it. We have some big
machines from Europe. They can't move because it would just
cost as much to move them as by a new
and so we're built into that. And so we started
kind of gently knocking on the neighbor's door, Hey, would
(26:21):
you be in you know, you want to sell. Yeah,
So you know, at first it was thanks, but no thanks,
and if the second was maybe possibly, and then it
became then it became okay, we decided not to and
then we hit kind of this critical like, oh my gosh,
we're probably gonna have to move, this is going to
be terrible. Maybe well let's ask one last time, right,
And they came back and said, oh, yeah, we've been
meaning to reach out to you. Actually there is an
(26:42):
interest level now because and they have. They were a
tool and die up and they have multiple ones across
the country. They said, yeah, we're finding that we can
probably merge this business into another. And so it was
like great, now when you say that, though there's no
deal to be had, They're like, here's our price.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
By the way, and so we because they knew you
wanted it.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
They knew we wanted it, but they were fair. But
you know, there's no there was no there was no deal, right,
so we bought the building and as and as this
negotiation was going on, my brother, sister and I would
sit down and be like, okay, well, what's the first
thing we need? Okay, more manufacturing, absolutely, so what can
we probably build? We coul probably put about thirty thousand
(27:23):
square feet on the property, Okay, so then what else
can we do? And we do a lot of factory
tours every day. But we've you know, in the last
two years, because we did it started in twenty twelve
and then we had to pause in twenty twenty unfortunately
because COVID and then we brought tours back in twenty two,
probably because it was about two years we had to stop.
(27:44):
And so in twenty twenty two, we've had, we had
more people in the plant, more equipment because of passengers,
and so we couldn't give as much as big of tours.
We didn't have as much space, and so for the
last two years we've been it's been hard to get
a tour with us because they sell out so fast.
And so we say, Okay, we have this demand for tourism,
(28:04):
but we can't satisfy it. We need to we need
to do more tourism. We would love to have more
people on the campus. We love to have more people
coming through because if you go through the factory and
see how we hand decorate and hand pack and see
all everything going through, it's the best marketing you can
get on the brand, absolutely and people really love Happy
and you get a free free chocolate sample on the tour.
So it was like, okay, well, what's number one. Let's
(28:27):
have something for people. People are waiting because we can
take twenty five at a time. Let's let's have something
for people to do. And maybe we do, Like we
didn't want to be a full restaurant, but we were like,
what's the little bit lighter version, Maybe a cafe coffee
iced tea right light bites sandwiches, our friends at Volty
Salami or down the street like I you know, I
(28:48):
was like, I want to do Vulpy Salamia.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I reach out to all the local businesses.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Oh yeah, this is going to be this will be
the local food emporium. Like all of those brands that
you saw in that samples box. We had like all
already talked him about our cafe's fantastic. So I was like, oh,
companion for my bread and uh, you know, so all
of these things. So we were just like, hey, by
the way, you want to be on So it's going
to be all of these local brands. Where we were thinking, okay,
(29:12):
we'll start with you know, a full coffee bar, espresso drinks,
you know, get the espresso machine, and then we'll do
drip coffee and then iced tea. And then it was like, well,
wait a second, what about birthday parties? And its great
because I have young kids. I have three young kins
under six, so two, four and six. My brother has
four kids under I think.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
You're thinking kid birthday parties.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
We're a kid birthday parties. And as I go on
kid birthday parties, you know what parents like to do.
They like a beer and why thank you. We're like, well,
why don't we do right, that's why they put a
bar in there. So we said. I talked to someone
and they said, well, you know, liquor license, there's a
lot of steps. You should hire consultants. So we did
and they phenomenal. And so I asked the question one day,
(29:53):
is we're going through the process of the liquor license?
I said, by the way, because we're applying for uh,
you know, there's I think four stages, but wine and
beer is what we started with because that's what we
figured we'd serve. And I said, by the way, what's
the cost in the city to add liquor? And he
gave me the price and it wasn't a big difference,
and I was like, so be you know, usually like
(30:15):
it's a democracy. I talked to my brother and sister
about everything. I made a unilateral decision that day that
we're going for liquor.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Good for you. I am chocolate martini.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So that I was like, well, let's have We're going
to put it in the event space so you can
have part. But then I just kept it, just kept thinking,
I'm like, I don't want to see as a parent
a bar for my kid's birthday party. Right, so I say,
let's we'll put a partition up or something. I was like,
oh my god, private bar, partition, We're going to open
a speakeasy.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And then at that point we should have paused and
maybe thot like how much is this going to cost?
And how much additional staff is going to need? But
we just know we so let's just go for it.
Let's put with the press release and say we're gonna
have a coffee shop, cafe and bar.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
And that's what we did, and that's what we're building.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
We're so excited. I can't tell you how much R
and D has been going into the perfect because it's
of course gonna have a chocolate spin on it, chocolate
themed cocktails. We'll have a standard classic menu as well.
See I love cocktails. I do tooied are you really? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So I'm a huge fan of just the whole. I
can't cook worth beans, but I could make a drink.
So when you bring chocolate anywhere into a drink, Oh that's.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
All I think. I mean, I think of like you
should see how many different bidders and how many different
you know, like Vermouth Matters, like the brand new were
and so yeah, so we've been a lot of research
has been going.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Into I'm excited to try them all.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Y Well. One of the i mean, one of the
things in the peace in that Saint Louis box we
called the King Louis Carmel. There's this cocktail called the
King lou the fourteenth and it's the shamboard and gin
and then so we made it one day in our
R and D sessions and how fun would that be?
So we're like, this is delicious. This should be a caramel.
So you know, candy makers, candy makers, we're all now mixologists.
(32:02):
We made the King Louis Carmel and that it has
the spirits in there. The great thing is when you're
cooking the product and flashes out, so it's safe to
consume without a liquor license and it's not going to
get anyone drunka.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
That's one thing. I remember my dad loving the the
you know, spirit filled chocolates he would get from England
from his hometown.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I don't know who some of those actually are. You
have the you know five percent ours are less than
they were strong. Yeah, those are your European the imports,
they'll get you, yes, but a kid can eat ours
and they run. You know, it's not communisue we tested,
but the you know, so that a lot of these
collections are coming from us tasting different cocktails and you know,
pairing it with chocolate. We're going to definitely expand into
(32:40):
the chocolate liquor world on a much bigger scale as well.
We're about to launch, so you're going to be the
first in the world to hear a gin and tonic
bar with a craft gin distillery.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
You know, that's my favorite drink. Tonic is my alters
go to.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
I run two different spectrums. I go Manhattan gin and tonic,
and then if I fash we're to bring a triangle
out of it. It's dirty martini.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Oh, yes, that's a dirty Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Say I always say, I'll take a dirty martini. Three
olives make it filthy. Yeah, that's like that's filter.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You want the brine.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
That's the drink order right there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
They and a good chocolate martini. Yes, they're not easy
to get. Sometimes they just taste wrong.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I agree. I think the secret to life is take
our chocolate predris and then pret on the glass and
then grind our.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Chocolate on top Ooh I love that. And speaking of
so if you are interested in ordering or going or
finding all the information more history, there's so much and
I wish we're gonna have to do this again because
there's just so much to talk about. Bissingers dot com.
It's really easy to find. You could order online, get
great gift ideas, which is fantastic. It's just to me
(33:52):
it's year round.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Oh for sure. And I mean we have so many seasons.
I mean we make up over nine hundred products just
at Bissingers alone, so we'll you know, we'll have from
Christmas to Valentine's to Eastern to Mother's Day, to raspberry
season in July to Father's Day in summer. It's just
it's amazing, and that's what keeps it so fun because
every day is just something new.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Well, I'm excited when in a few months from now
or however long. I won't put a date on it.
We're trying when when it opens, you know, to get
that code, the secret code to the speakeasy, and there
could be weddings there. You just never know what could happen.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I know, it's it's gonna be can grow. We're so many,
so many fun things I think are going to come
out of that. Yeah, but then we still, you know,
have to make sure because we're still chocolate people, so like, yeah,
but I think that side of the business is going
to be awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
I think it's going to grow really fast. I think
you'll you'll be shocked at.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
We we're building it for. Like, we really sat down
and said, like we you know, the first set of plans,
like we don't have enough bathrooms. We need to make
sure that we can accommodate this, and we have it.
So we really tried to sit like we're have an
outside patio as well, and then we expanded that. And
at first the first speakeasy rendition was a little tight.
We actually took an office building that we have and
(35:05):
taped it off and built it, put temporary walls up
because on the blueprint it's.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
This big, yeah, and so you can't really tell.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I walked in it and I said, this is wrong.
We're going to make a huge mistake and it's going
to be way too expensive and way too hard to fix.
So I went back to the architect in the constructed contractor,
I said, are we too late? And I said no,
So I said, okay, well we need to. We need to,
you know. So all of those things were very much
because I love going to bars, I love going to restaurants,
I love going to coffee shops, and so I wanted
to make sure that our experience is going to be
first class.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Atmosphere is everything. Yes, So Bassengers again, dot Com and
dan Abell, thank you so much for your time. You
have no idea how just excited I am because it's
another local, amazing business putting Saint Louis on the map,
which we really are so special of a city we are,
and thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Thank you,
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