Cheryl Till bought Bayside Chocolates, a small business in the remote Downeast community of Lubec, last year to channel her hobbyist passion for candy-making into a commercial endeavor.
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Cheryl Till bought Bayside Chocolates, a small business in the remote Downeast community of Lubec, last year to channel her hobbyist passion for candy-making into a commercial endeavor.
In just a year, her star product — peppermint patties made with organic ingredients — has found its way into celebrity gift bags given out in conjunction with the Academy Awards and celebrity chef Bobby Flay's food shows; and will be an official product at this year's centennial celebrations of Acadia National Park. And she's grown her wholesale connections from two to about 10 outlets in Maine, ranging from Machias Hardware to Tiller & Rye in Brewer.
Still, the retail side is iffy in this small community that's off the beaten track and depends largely on tourists and summer residents who form the bulk of her retail business.
“When the tourist season ended, customers ended,” she says of her first summer, in 2015. “There are few people in Lubec, especially during this time of year. My goal is not to earn all the money in summer and then spend it during the winter, just paying overhead. I want to be earning money all year long. Lubec businesses need to work to increase traffic all year long.”
Bayside Chocolates was founded around 2000 by lobster fisherman Eugene Greenlaw, who passed away in February 2015. Till, who grew up making candy for friends and family, was working in the business office of East Machias' Washington Academy, where the sister of Greenlaw's wife also worked and made it known the business was up for sale.
Greenlaw had established a welcoming place. Yelp reviews from his tenure reflect the spirit: “This isn't just a chocolate shop, but a social gathering spot too,” one reviewer wrote.
Till took the plunge, paying an undisclosed price for the business.
“I always wanted to have a business of my own,” she says. “You get to a point where life's getting short. I had the opportunity and I took it. I wanted to be able to do something that was fun, and provide a product that's better for people. A lot of people don't care what they eat when it comes to candy. But I care.”
In April 2015, Till bought the name and supplies — display counters, candy molds, candy machines, packaging materials — and borrowed $24,000 for capital investment and operations, in anticipation of having enough revenue by spring 2016 to begin paying back the principal.
She reopened Bayside Chocolates on June 24. The leased retail space, at 43 Water St., covers 1,000 square feet on the ground floor of a multi-unit building. Till's space is divided in half. The front is a display and eating area, with four tables and a dozen chairs that invite passersby in for a cup of coffee and homemade muffins.
As she conducted her market research, she decided she would make gourmet products free of preservatives, additives and artificial colors. Everything would be made by hand, fresh, and organic as much as possible. She would use source ingredients — peppermint oil, for example, rather than extract. And she would incorporate what she calls “innovative and witty tastes of delectable local flavors,” such as wild blueberries, cranberries and Maine potatoes, all blended with premium chocolate.
“I'm taking Bayside to the next level. I'm intent on getting our name out there,” she says.
Package prices retail from $2.49 for peppermint patties, two per pack; to $10.49 for a box of six “coffee cups” — roasted ground organic coffee combined with dulce de leche filling, coated with dark chocolate, topped with coffee beans and drizzled with chocolate. Other products such as truffles, “sticky doos,” sea turtles and solid chocolates fall in between.
Expanded network, branding,
On the wholesale side, those first months, she started with pre-existing accounts at John Edwards Market in Ellsworth; and Beech Hill Farm, a summer farmstand in Somesville. These accounts, which Greenlaw had serviced, gave Till a chance to continue her sales with them. John Edwards is selling Till's peppermint patties and recently increased orders from once every 30 to 40 days to once every two weeks; she now produces about 60 packages of patties per order. Wholesale accounts now include Tiller & Rye in Brewer, Eat Local Eastport Co-op, Machias Hardware, Machias Marketplace, The Whiting Store, and Knock On Wood in Baring; and she's received inquiries from Sweeties Downeast in Calais and Eastport and Tradewinds Marketplace.
Till mainly starts off her wholesale accounts with her bestseller, peppermint patties. Currently, in a given month, she is producing 300 to 500 packages of patties. The process is labor-intensive. One batch equals about 105 patties. It takes about two hours to scoop, roll, flatten and then dip individually by hand. All of which adds to the store's appeal.
Small town appeal, universal taste
“When you've got a small town like Lubec, every business is important,” says John Sutherland, the town's administrator. “When [visitors] are downtown or on the waterfront, the fact that they've got a chocolate shop like Bayside Chocolates, it invites them to come in and explore.”
Ruth Cash-Smith, a business adviser at The Women's Business Center at CEI: Rural Maine, provided Till with assistance in setting up the business. She cites Bayside Chocolates as an example of the “crucial role” small businesses play in rural areas, “providing us with essential goods and services that make our small rural communities livable.”
Till got assistance of another kind when a representative of a Los Angeles marketing firm called WOW! Creations Media emailed her one day, asking if she wanted to have her peppermint patties included in celebrity gift bags associated with Bobby Flay's shows on the Food Network. Wow! Creations specializes in creating celebrity and VIP gift bags for Hollywood award shows, sport events and the like.
Till donated 175 patties to gift bags for participants in the SCI Mountain Challenge at the Sunday River Ski Resort last September, and to Campobello Fogfest in late July, so she thinks the rep might have sampled the patties at one or the other event.
Till received the email Nov. 27. She learned the relationship required her to pay a small fee to participate, and had the potential for at least some exposure.
“I thought, 'How can I pass this up?'” she recalls. In less than a week, she made 50 patties for 50 bags, overnighting them to New York City.
She doubts the exposure had a direct impact on sales. And when WOW! Creations contacted her again about participating in the Academy Awards, she initially turned them down.
“But they came back and said, 'We'll give you a price break,'” she says. “They felt our patties were that good. And the Oscars are their biggest event. So it's a chance a new business owner like me has to take.”
Mark Harris, a principal at WOW! Creations, said Bayside was discovered by one of its national sales people, leading to the Bobby Flay event.
“Bayside Chocolates mailed us a few samples at that time and, after sampling them, I just fell in love with them and found them to be the best peppermint patty out there, hands down. Placing them in our annual Oscar gift bag was a no-brainer,” said Harris. “We love the fact that they are created by a small-town business. We love the packaging, love the name. On top of that, they truly are the best.”
Till connected with the Acadia Centennial several months ago, during a Downeast & Acadia Regional Tourism symposium, where both she and Friends of Acadia had display tables.
“I knew when I saw them that I wanted to be part of the centennial,” she says. “I sent in an application and got in. We have their official stickers for every box of our peppermint patties, and we'll donate 5% of those sales to Friends of Acadia, and we're on their website. Right now I'm contacting businesses in Bar Harbor about carrying our patties.”
Going where the people are
Now she's aiming for better retail exposure that will make Bayside Chocolates a truly year-round business with potential for sales and employee growth. Up to now, she's been operating on her own, with some help from family last summer during busy storefront hours. When asked, she agrees that, in terms of tourist traffic, there might be some advertising advantage to being in the nation's easternmost town.
Still, she says, “What I've learned is that Bayside Chocolates needs to go to where the people are. We need to be where people are seeing — and ordering — our products year-round.”
To that end, she's considering a possible relocation that could not be divulged at press time.
Still, she reveals, “I'm excited about growing my business. That means looking for every opportunity to increase Bayside's visibility. Lubec is a great town, but I have to tap into markets where I can have customers all year long. For my business, which is my life, to succeed, and for Eugene's chocolates to continue, right now I am depending on wholesale marketing to take us where we need to be.”
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