COVER STORY


every customer a bespoke chocolate manufacturer. It is to introduce a more collaborative relationship into a category where many professional users are accustomed to choosing from a fixed portfolio. As Michael puts it: “I’d like the chocolate company to be viewed as a partner rather than simply a supplier.”


Keeping chocolate simple Alongside flexibility, the founders return repeatedly to the subject of ingredients. For Brandon, this is closely connected to his culinary background. “Our beans are sourced from Fairtrade


and organic producers,” he says. “When you buy our chocolate, we want there to be genuine value going back through the supply chain.” The company’s public materials


describe its approach as focused on “pure, natural ingredients” and a chef- led bean-to-bar process, although the precise certification status and sourcing structure of individual products will need to be clarified as the business scales. Brandon’s own philosophy is really quite


straightforward. “We’re buying good beans and not over-roasting them. We’re not compromising flavour with unnecessary vanilla or other additives. We want to be true to what chocolate is: cocoa mass, cocoa butter and organic cane sugar.” If the company is making milk


chocolate, he says, it uses whole milk powder. If it is incorporating additional flavours, Brandon wants the ingredients to be recognisable. “If you have a raspberry and fennel chocolate, it uses real raspberries that we freeze-dry ourselves and real fennel seeds,” he says. “When it says raspberry, it should actually be raspberry.” It is a chef’s philosophy applied to


chocolate manufacturing. “You take a good piece of steak from a good farmer, season it with salt, sear it and cook it properly,” Brandon says. “You let the product speak for itself. “For us, it’s the same. It comes from a good cacao supplier, we intervene as little as possible and let the product speak for itself.”


Building for scale without losing flexibility The founders have spent around two and a half years developing the company, with the next stage centred around their Toronto production facility. Public information from the business


describes a factory in Toronto that has been designed to serve both manufacturing and visitor experiences, while the company has previously referred to a site of approximately


15,000–20,000 square feet and, elsewhere, around 16,000 square feet. That apparent flexibility of description


may seem like a small detail, but it reflects the scale of what the founders are attempting to build. Michael says the challenge has been balancing meaningful production capacity with the ability to remain responsive. “One of the most important things for us is the combination of an entrepreneurial mindset with the right capital equipment and scalability,” he says. “If you have equipment capable of


producing at a meaningful scale, while the decision-making process remains nimble, you can actually be flexible quite quickly.” The pair say the initial line is capable of


producing around 250kg an hour, although that figure should be confirmed against final installed equipment and operating conditions before publication. Their broader point, however, is clear: As


We Do does not want to choose between craft and scale. The founders want both.


factory as a child, an experience that has stayed with him. “No matter what age you are, you become a kid again,” he says. “You have that curiosity and wonder. “How is this made? What are all these


gadgets and machines doing to produce this chocolate bar that I’m eventually going to buy?”


It is an unusually human way to talk about industrial manufacturing. And perhaps that is the point.


A different kind of chocolate company? There is no shortage of ambition at As We Do Chocolate. The company is entering a competitive category, building manufacturing infrastructure and attempting to establish itself in both professional and consumer markets. Its own launch materials position the business as a Canadian, scaled, chef- led alternative for hospitality and foodservice, alongside retail and gifting. But the most interesting aspect of the


conversation is not the machinery, the market size or even the business model. It is the perspective. Speaking with Brandon, chocolate is rarely


WE WANT TO BE TRUE TO


WHAT CHOCOLATE IS: COCOA MASS, COCOA BUTTER AND ORGANIC CANE SUGAR


discussed in isolation. It is discussed in terms of the chef trying to make a ganache. The baker trying to maintain consistency. The restaurant working with narrow margins. The creator trying to make something that tastes exactly the way they imagined. Michael, meanwhile, brings the counterbalance of someone who understands that an idea only matters if it can be built into a sustainable business. That combination is the foundation of


Behind the glass The facility is also intended to play a role in the company’s relationship with its customers and the wider community. For Brandon, one word defines the approach: transparency. “You can see the people making the


chocolate,” he says. “There’s nothing to hide. “You see the beans going into the


roaster. You see them coming out. You see the different stages of production. You see the full operation.” The plan includes a retail element and


large windows that will allow visitors to look into the production environment. “It’s meant to be visited,” Michael says. That sense of openness reflects a wider desire to reconnect people with the production process. “I think a really cool thing about what we’re doing is that people can come to our factory and meet us,” Brandon says. “They can put on a gown and come and make chocolate with us.” Brandon recalls visiting a chocolate


As We Do. Looking ahead, Brandon says he wants the company to become “an input into the creator’s output”. “I want us to be solving both a want and a need for Canadian foodservice and, hopefully, eventually for North America and perhaps beyond that,” he says. Michael’s vision is similarly


collaborative: “I want the chocolate company to be viewed as a partner rather than simply a supplier,” he says. “We don’t want the relationship to be,


‘Here’s what we have. We’re the supplier. That’s the end of the discussion.’ “I want us to always be part of the


discussion.” As Kennedy’s Confection continues to


explore chocolate across different regions and markets, it is a timely reminder that innovation does not always arrive in the form of an entirely new ingredient or technology. Sometimes it begins by looking at an established product from a different angle. In this case, through the eyes of the chef who has spent years having to work with it. And now, with As We Do Chocolate, has decided to make it himself.


AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2026 • KENNEDY’S CONFECTION • 17


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