The Appleton Chocolates Company

We are Alan and Beth, owners and operators of the Appleton Chocolates Company.

My late wife Merle and I started this business 15 years ago in our kitchen, and then we moved it into a small shop just across the road, out in the middle of the woods. Just two short years later a lot of things changed and for the next 8 years my neighbour Sheila and I ran the shop and made the chocolates. We got to know many of the customers who visited the shop and one of those customers was Beth, who is now my wife and partner and co-worker at the chocolates shop. (From a purely business perspective it is not always wise to marry a good customer. From a personal perspective, it sure is nice to make my living at an occupation that delights my wife.)

We work fairly casually all spring and summer, but after Labour Day we run flat out to try to make enough product to satisfy the Christmas demand. We can usually stay on top of it, although there are times in November when the inventory is a bit thin.

Our shop is inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and we are licensed and inspected by the Food Safety Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture. We are located at 567 Lake Road in Wentworth, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. Essentially, we have a small shop in a rural area, and we walk to work. It's a nice life . . .

We do not advertise open hours for the shop because we do not guarantee to be there at any particular time. In this year 2012 we hope to spend much more time in the woodlot and in the garden until autumn, when the Christmas chocolates season kicks in for us. However, Beth has a table at the Tatamagouche Farmers' Market every Saturday from 8:00 am to noon (1:00 pm in high summer) and you can always find our chocolates and beeswax candles there.

(Alan) I often get asked why I started in the chocolates business, and my usual reply is that "I wanted power over women . . . ". But the truth is that I had been looking for a manufacturing opportunity, especially one that could use some of our local agricultural resources to generate new wealth; new wealth is labour applying technology to raw materials to produce goods that can be inventoried and sold outside the local economy. I particularly enjoy purchasing goods from my neighbours - maple syrup, wild blueberries, cranberries, black currants - and making chocolates that I can sell to my customers all over Canada. I know how much effort my neighbours put into producing top quality foodstuffs, and I enjoy converting those products into our chocolates. And I am not alone; all around me I see others working hard to produce good food for family and friends and customers. On Saturday mornings I go to the Tatamagouche Farmer's Market and buy organic bread, sprouts, and jams and jellies. I get fresh eggs, poultry and fish direct from the producers. I buy beans and rice and flour and other staples from my local health food store. My milk is processed within 1/2 hour of my home. I am part of a small, localised food network, and that is a very good thing. And you can be a part of it too . . .

And I walk to work, about 1/4 mile from my house door to my shop door. It's down a long driveway past a beaver's meadow, and along a paved rural road beside fields and woods and streams. In my walk to work I have seen black bear, moose, white-tailed deer, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, beavers, muskrats, otters, mink, bobcats, squirrels and chipmunks, bald eagles, ospreys, northern harriers, great blue herons, owls, and all manner of geese and ducks. All winter the chickadees follow me down the road, taking sunflower seeds from my fingers. And all summer the wild flowers dance in the breeze, from the first coltsfoot in the spring to the last of the asters in October. Even in winter, the rose hips add colour to the roadsides.

And that makes up for a lot . . . .

I carry my camera most days, and here's a little sample of what I see. All of these pictures were taken in my yard, on my driveway, or on the walk to the shop. Pictures here.