The re-opening of Forrat’s Chocolates is set to take place this Friday at its new location on 2190 Dundas Street. The chocolate shop shut down a month ago after high-hikes in rental prices.
The owner Marc Forrat has now the goal of delivering high-end chocolates to people while still maintaining a fair and affordable price to customers.
‘’When I was 12 years old in Brazil I’d go to school every morning and take a bus in front of a chocolate shop called ‘Copenhagen’.
‘’We had a rough life with my family as well, and one of my dreams when I was a kid was to buy my mom some high-end chocolates, and I could never afford it.‘’
With the help of Fedev, the Western District and the City of London, Forrat has also opened a new manufacturing facility located at The Grove.
Photo by Bernardo Lucca
‘’We are opening a new company now, that is focused on wholesale and chocolate manufacturing. The demand for our chocolate is now rising again because of Christmas, so we decided to open a little chocolate shop. Now, we have a factory that uses a lot of the hand techniques that we used to use, but when it comes to a certain aspect of the production, there are some machines that just helps to automatize things, saving us a lot of time.”
‘’I grew up with this in mind, that chocolate was something amazing and unobtainable. I grew up with a passion of one day having a company that makes high-end chocolate that everybody could afford.”
Forrat explains that he had to shut down the other location due to the rise of rental prices.
‘’We had to refocus our energy into the production, closing the lounge because the rent was too expensive.’’
‘’I had to figure out a way to change things in my company. I sat down for countless hours with my family, my advisors, staff to talk about how to make our chocolate more affordable without cutting the quality down. So, we continued the strategy building and we figured out that adding a little bit of equipment to it would help, because it would cut labor time to do the same chocolate.”
‘’We are humble from having our customers support us all these years. I know this location is a little far away, but it’s worth it. You will be surprised with the prices.”
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