Between inflation and high costs, artisans face the challenges of the holidays

For many businesses, the holiday period is a key time of year to fill the tills. However, with rising raw material prices and inflation affecting Manitoba customers, preparations are becoming a real headache for artisans. They must find solutions to reduce their costs and offer affordable products.

Up well before dawn, the three pastry chefs of the Gatô bakery are busy behind the ovens.

In a few hours, they must prepare hundreds of pastries that will adorn the festive tables of Winnipeggers.

Like many boutiques, this holiday season was carefully planned months in advance on the shop floor.

This year, however, the preparations are more complicated. Pastry chefs must juggle the high cost of ingredients and the tight budgets of their customers, hard hit by inflation.

We try to adapt, but we need chocolate for Christmas, there’s nothing we can do about it, explains Laura Gurbhoo, owner of the Gatô bakery.

I believe customers will have less budgets for dessert.

As for the Decadence chocolate factory, the situation is even more difficult: the price of cocoa is reaching new heights. According to Bernard Callebaut, chocolatier at Master Chocolat, cocoa is currently trading at a price more than three times higher than in February last year.

My biggest challenge is the cost. Everything has increased, especially chocolate explains Helen Staines, chocolatier and owner of Decadence Chocolates.

However, it is crucial for Helen Staines, owner of the chocolate factory, that December sales are good. Christmas is our biggest season. This is very important, because it gives us momentum for the rest of the year, she explains.

A delicate balance for these entrepreneurs

To avoid increasing their prices, artisans must adopt strategies to reduce their costs. Helen Staines focuses in particular on the efficiency of her team.

She is also developing new recipes using less expensive ingredients, such as fruit jellies. This influences my choices when it comes to deciding what to put in gift baskets, she adds.

However, the chocolatier has little room for maneuver. We remain a chocolate factory, so the majority of our production must be chocolate-based, she explains.

For her part, the owner of the Gatô bakery, Laura Gurbhoo, chose sobriety this year. We offer a more limited menu, with products whose cost we can better control, she declares. In particular, she created vegan Christmas cookies, a classic that is both affordable and original.

We want to be there for our customers, but it’s really a lot of effort for just one week, explains Laura Gurbhoo. The pastry chef emphasizes that she understands the difficult situation of her customers, because she also experiences it on a daily basis.

However, lowering its prices is not a feasible option, as it would directly impact its employees. I don’t want my employees to be faced with a situation where they experience inflation without their salaries being adjusted, she insists.

For his part, Calgary-based master chocolatier Bernard Callebaut, who supplies several stores in Alberta and Manitoba, including Chocolates on Academy Road in Winnipeg, had to take measures to deal with inflation. This year, it was forced to increase prices of some products by 15 to 30 percent.

I have been making chocolate for 41 years and I have a reputation to uphold.

To maintain its recipes and continue to produce quality chocolates, Bernard Callebaut had no other choice. We have adjusted the prices, but of course we remain very cautious, because there is a moment when consumers encounter a psychological blockage, he explains.

He nevertheless emphasizes that his customers have been very understanding of this price increase, which, until now, has not affected his turnover. Consumers consider that it remains an affordable luxury, he adds, while acknowledging that this reasoning may seem counterintuitive.