COVER STORY T
ravelling has always offered one of the best ways to understand how differently an industry can develop from one market to the next.
During a recent trip across Canada and the US, Kennedy’s Confection had the opportunity to explore a different regional perspective on chocolate and confectionery – from the people making it and the businesses shaping its future, to the distinctive challenges surrounding supply, scale and market access. For an industry so global in its supply chains, the differences on the ground can be surprisingly pronounced. In Canada, one conversation in
ate
particular brought that into sharp focus: As We Do Chocolate. The Toronto- based venture is the work of two very different but complementary founders: chef and chocolatier Brandon Olsen, whose career has taken him through some of the world’s most renowned kitchens, including Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry; and Michael Held, an entrepreneur and business builder with decades of experience scaling companies. Together, they are building a chef- led, bean-to-bar chocolate company with an ambition to address what they see as a significant gap in the Canadian foodservice market: providing chefs, bakers, hotels and other professional users with high-quality chocolate produced locally, at meaningful scale, but with a degree of collaboration and customisation they argue is difficult to find from the industry’s largest suppliers. It is an ambitious proposition. But what makes the conversation around As We Do particularly interesting is that it begins not with a market report or a manufacturing strategy, but with the perspective of someone who has spent decades working in professional kitchens. And that changes the conversation.
The chef’s perspective When Kennedy’s Confection’s Editor, Kiran Grewal, spoke to Brandon and Michael, it quickly became clear that the origins of As We Do Chocolate were foundational to a problem Brandon had been thinking about for years. “My tenure as a chef is going on
almost 30 years,” Brandon says. “You realise you’re pretty pigeonholed to certain commodities.” For Brandon, chocolate had always held a
particular attraction. He gravitated towards the sweeter side of the dining experience and became increasingly interested in chocolate as a creative medium. But when he began working with chocolate professionally, he
I WISH I’D HAD THAT
OPTION WHEN I OWNED RESTAURANTS YEARS
AGO – TO BE ABLE TO SAY, ‘WE FORMULATED THIS TOGETHER. NO OTHER
RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD HAS THIS EXACT FORMULA OF CHOCOLATE.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2026 • KENNEDY’S CONFECTION • 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
