Karen Flavelle takes a bite of a pineapple cream chocolate.
It doesnt quite droop and it should droop, she says, looking at how the cream filling oozes or doesnt ooze out of the chocolate as she determines the chocolates mouth feel.
Once her grandfathers favourite, shes surprised to find it in the sampling box that has been delivered to her office at Purdys Chocolates. Pineapple cream may be making a comeback, but if its to awaken older customers sense of taste memory, as well as new customers taste loyalty, its got to be perfect.
Flavelle marks the box with her assessment and returns to talking about why Purdys is still making chocolates that people love 105 years after Richard Purdy opened his first chocolate shop on Robson.
Perhaps its surprising that Flavelle, who owns the company and has been its president since 1997, takes such a hands-on approach. But in addition to her formidable business background, if theres one thing she knows, its chocolates. Purdys Chocolates.
As kids, she says smiling, we helped Dad on weekends but really we just played hide and see between the stock boxes. The beaters that did the caramel would always have caramel on them and wed be allowed to peel it off.
Dad is Charles Flavelle, who bought the company in 1963 with his partner Eric Wilson despite the banks warnings the company had not demonstrated great profitability.
Charles loved building things and was always keen to discover if there was a better way to do things. Together, he and Wilson grew the company, introducing milk chocolate, expanding throughout the Lower Mainland and into Alberta.
And while his four children knew they were lucky to have a father who owned a chocolate business, he never wanted them to think that it came as a birthright. Dad told us he didnt want to parachute his kids [into the business] over long-term employees, Karen says.
Charles knew family succession could also mean family dissension. As the companys website says, Richard Purdys adventurous inclination, which worked so brilliantly with chocolates, often turned to misadventure where money was concerned. The company was buried in debt when Hugh Forrester bought it in 1925. Forresters son Frank joined the company in the 1940s but Franks talent at modernizing and expanding Purdys was in contrast to his fathers more conservative character. In 1963, father and son had a falling out, prompting the sale to Charles Flavelle and Wilson.
Not wanting their children to have a sense of entitlement, Charles and Lucile Flavelle encouraged Karen and her siblings to do the things we love and are passionate about.
Karen wanted a career in international business and after getting a degree at Queens University, spent a year and a half in Japan, intrigued by its sense of style and colour. She came back during the worst recession since the Second World War and got a job with General Mills. When she fell in love with a Canadian banker working in England, she packed her bags again. But England taught her something about herself: Im not a consultant. I like to do, not tell people what to do.
The couple moved back to Canada, settling in Toronto. Flavelle was back working in the packaged goods industry when she read the book, What Colour is My Parachute. She asked herself, What is it that I like to do? The answer was work in a medium-sized retail company. Didnt she know exactly such a company back in Vancouver?
Her father, however, was not convinced it was the right thing to do. Karen and her husband spent five more years in Toronto, where she honed her retail acumen with Cara food services. By 1994, a few things had happened to convince Charles Flavelle that family succession might just work after all. His long-term employees were thinking about retiring, not buying the business. One of his sons was killed in a mountain climbing accident, a tragedy that makes a person keenly aware of how quickly those things we love can be lost to us forever. And Karen had proved that not only did she have the business moxie to take over as vice-president, but she also had a passion for Purdys Chocolates itself.
Still, there were a few things to work out after the Flavelles bought Eric Wilsons shares (amicably). Dad saw me on the factory floor for a year and I was thinking that was not the way [to learn more about the business], Karen says. She agreed she needed to know about every aspect of Purdys, from manufacturing to retail, but sped up the timeline of how long that would take.
My bent was feeling the difference between the seasons Christmas is about family traditions and corporate gifts, Valentines is about love, and Easter is about fun and kids and Easter egg hunts, she says. Shes the one who re-introduced deep purple as the companys official and highly recognizable colour. Retail stores were jazzed up to help create a sense of anticipation of that first bite.
Today, its the challenge of both giving people all of their favourites and making sure they taste the way they always have and responding to new trends. Theres only so much counterspace, so right next to the hedgehog sits the Himalayan Pink Salt Caramels.
Purdys is working on a new line of savoury bon bons. We made a brie fig lemon truffle that won an award, she notes, her mind obviously trying to figure out the way to get it into mass market production.
Asked what she loves about the business, she says, The chocolate. Obviously it tastes wonderful but its something you can do a lot with it, and its how happy it makes people feel. [As a gift], it goes a little further than just the words.
And as committed as she is to work, she knows how important it is to take care of herself (especially if shes going to taste test all those chocolates.) Energy in, energy out, says the avid sportswoman whose idea of absolute happiness is a powder day, end of Grand Fondo.
Flavelle and her husband have three children, two in university, one still at home. Like her father, shes always encouraged them to follow their passions and right now it doesnt seem like the path is leading them back to Purdys. Thats the risk you take when you err on not creating a sense of entitlement.
Tears well in her eyes when she talks about her parents and their lessons in love and in business. For all the new things shes done, she has a deep respect for past successes, and the hard work that made them possible.
The future? Right now its to ensure that every child who gets a visit from the Easter Bunny, every adult who is taken back to their childhood with a bite of a hedgehog, and every customer seeking a new taste exploration knows that theyll find what they crave at Purdys Chocolates.
Grace Dale, a long-time employee at Purdys and Karen Flavelles executive assistant, has written a fascinating and lively history of the company. The book is available at Purdys stores while extracts can be read on Purdys.com.
