Every year, the beginning of April marks my birthday. It’s usually an excuse for me to bring people together around a nice meal to catch up. It is also a period in which I take the time to sit down and reflect on the year past, and, oh boy, what a year it was!
On a personal level, at last year’s birthday, I was freshly separated and lived alone for the first time in 20 years. It was a daunting feeling. Luckily, I have a friends around me who are happy to provide support when needed.
On a professional level, I’m looking back at a roller coaster of a year. On my birthday last year, after weighing all options, I decided that bringing moments of relaxation through chocolate would be my new life and I filed all the paperwork to create the business that very day. In the 365 days that followed, several events and encounters happened that brought me to where I am today.
I found a wonderful team of creative people from around the world that have joined me on this journey to help with the visual side of things. If I am good at making chocolate and telling my story, I am not a master at graphic design.
Together we have refined the Chocolat Philippe brand and charted out a path on how to combine chocolate and mindfulness. The next step was to apply this new identity to the website. In the meantime, I was working with a company in Turkey to design my own moulds to be able to make bars with the exact right amount of chocolate for one blissful moment of relaxation.
Once the final moulds were delivered, we could start working on the different packaging items for our very own bars. I never thought it would be such a challenge to source food-grade sustainable packaging locally. From the compostable cellophane bags to seal the bars and preserve their delicate flavours to the various boxes to protect them when shipping, at every step COVID was around the corner to remind me life is best enjoyed with patience and gratitude.
I also worked with my bean suppliers to identify some exciting new origins for the first batches I will create. I ordered a variety of different origins from around the world and I can’t wait to share all these new delicate bars with you.
The first goal is in sight and very soon I will finally be able to share the Chocolat Philippe experience with the rest of the world. I have no exact date yet. As I’m writing this blog, I am waiting on the samples of all the packaging items to sign off and launch production.
In the meantime, I am grateful for all the people who supported me so far on this journey. First of all my parents, the friends who cheered me up when I was down, who provided me a shoulder to cry on and those who made me feel proud whenever one of the above milestones was achieved.
To all of you, in Australia and Belgium, and around the world, thank you for being there. Now it’s time to sit down, have a sip of wine, eat a piece of chocolate and look with excitement at the year ahead.
Thank you all!
