Page 14 - Food&Drink Magazine October 2018

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LEFT: House of Anvers founder Igor Van Gerwen.
BELOW: House of Anvers with café, museum and tasting centre.
“We also do specialty or corporate chocolates; these are printed with the customer’s logo on it. It’s hairdressers through to specialty car yards, when people are waiting for their car to be serviced. So we make chocolates with their logos on it.”
House of Anvers also supplies specialty stores, such as chocolate shops and specialty independent supermarkets, which tend to be at the higher end of the market.
“And now we do a tourism retail market as well, such as airports. We make similar products, but the packaging is a little bit different.”
OPPOSITE OF EXPORT
Years ago Van Gerwen dabbled in export but found his real competition was imports.
“Our competition is mainly from Belgium and Switzerland in the retail market, so we’re trying to regain back some of the Australian market for Australians.
“For export you really need a
lot of capital to market chocolate overseas because you’re up against countries like Belgium and Switzerland that have built a reputation for fine chocolates for centuries. When I was young, one of the hardest things was to break into the chocolate market in Belgium. It’s even harder from a distance.
“If you go to a market like Tokyo or Hong Kong – where we’ve played in – you’re up against very established brands, so you need to invest for a long time to build the market. We’ve found it more important to tackle imported lines into the Australian market.”
And that’s where Van Gerwen is aiming to steer House of Anvers in the future.
“We’re in the process of making the business larger, mainly on the wholesale side of things. We’ve done our vision, mission and values and we put those into our strategies. The first thing that people ask is ‘what’s your vision of your products?’. We’ve broken it
down: it’s ‘providing distinctive chocolate products and chocolate experiences normally reserved for the elite in society, to as many customers as possible, by making them approachable and affordable’.
“So it’s bringing the best, but not just supplying the elite level, to make it affordable for anybody
market is just overpriced, it’s ridiculous. So we think we can make the same products, or better, at a more affordable price. So that’s where we want to head.
“First of all 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.
68% “Ourbrandisreallywell known in Tasmania, but there
areafewaheadofusinthe overall Australian market.
So if people say in Sydney or Melbourne think about wanting
THE CACAO CONTENT something special, our name
OF SOME OF ANVERS’ DARK CHOCOLATE PRODUCTS
to buy. That’s really the aim of the business. That’s the market share we want to grow. People’s palates have improved over the years in chocolate, and they’re starting to look for finer chocolate, but most of it in the
should be up there for them. That’s what our aim is: we want our brand recognition to be a lot stronger.
“We’ve got some big plans.
I got a bit stale with what we were doing for the last few years, and I just needed something to rejuvenate myself and the business. We’ve put it all down in strategies now, and we’re heading full steam ahead. Soit’sverygood.” ✷
14 | Food&Drink business | October 2018 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au