Page 13 - Food&Drink Magazine October 2018

AT age 12, Igor Van Gerwen was working in a patissiere on weekends in his native Belgium.
After deciding he wanted to be a pastry chef, he spent the next six years at a college learning “patisserie, ice creams, sugar work, chocolate work – all the good things in life, basically”.
“One of my teachers was Roger Geerts, who wrote the book ‘The Belgian Praline’, which is still seen as the bible to chocolatiers.
“He inspired me to go into making chocolates, but in Belgium it’s pretty hard: you’re up against fourth and fifth- generation chocolatiers. So I was working as a pastry chef mainly for the next few years, then travelled with my sister to Indonesia and Australia. My sister ended up in Tasmania, and found a job for me.”
With “a visa and nothing to lose” the 20-year-old fell in love with Tasmania. More than two decades later, the laid-back perfectionist still calls the Apple Isle home.
SMALL BEGINNINGS
Of an evening, Van Gerwen began making traditional the Belgian truffles with chocolate that he was used to from his homeland.
“I started supplying one shop, then two shops, and it just grew. I ended up supplying David Jones in Melbourne, and then started to become a bit more serious and full-time, and I just grew the business from there. It’s all organic growth; it was just for a market with product that people loved.”
However there was an issue.
“The more I was selling, the more loss I was making, so I got a mentor in to teach me about the business side of things.”
With a laugh Van Gerwen says while he knew how to make chocolate, he “probably should have listened to business studies
at school, but I wasn’t really that interested at that time”. “The mentor really was
helpful; he was with the business for several years and set me on the right path, including looking at areas of training. There were no chocolatiers on the streets in Tasmania, so I had to have a training program in place to train all the staff to be able to do the same that I can.”
Training is still a big part of the business, and not just in making chocolate the Belgian way.
“We do training in every area of the business. We have 52 staff, which is 28 full-time equivalents, and we train all our staff, the cleaners, everyone, to a minimum of Cert III, and we encourage managers to go on for a diploma and an advanced diploma.”
One area of training is food-processing confectionery, which is the chocolate making, but other areas of training stretch across retail, hospitality, kitchen operations and maintenance.
“We sponsor it all. It’s a big part of our business. We’ve got a good team.”
CHANCING RISK
In 2002, Van Gerwen took what he considers the biggest risk in the business, buying a property between Devonport and Latrobe on the busy Bass Highway and opening up to tourism.
“The property suits the atmosphere of a chocolate factory. When we moved in there we opened up the café so people can enjoy chocolate in the right environment. We’ve got chocolate all through the menu, including things I’ve learned at school many years ago.
“We also have a little tasting centre and a chocolate museum so people can learn about chocolate and see the
“ We want to maintain the brand being
the number-one artisan chocolatier in Tasmania. Our next aim is to be in the top five artisan chocolatiers of Australia.”
chocolates being made through viewing windows. We call it a total chocolate experience and it’s been hugely successful.”
House of Anvers supplies into both retail and wholesale.
On the retail side, the broad product appeal sees Van Gerwen call it a “lean-to” market, rather than a target market as such.
“We make chocolates for children, such as chocolate lollipops, right through to whisky barrels with a high alcohol content for adults, using local whisky.
“On the wholesale side we have two groups: one is the restaurant or hospitality industry where we cater for the high-end, such as Tetsuya’s in Sydney. We do a single-origin Peruvian chocolate for them. It’s really high-end, very special and unique. We have the rights to that cacao in Australia. This is the world’s rarest chocolate, the Fortunato No.4, which we also supply to Virgin Airlines Business Class. In the same high-end market we do fudges and truffles for cafés – that’s a big part of our business.
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | October 2018 | Food&Drink business | 13
RISING STAR
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