Thursday, January 9, 2025
Chocolate and personalised packaging: a gourmet duo by Au-Delà du Chocolat
Events always have room for a gourmet memory like leaving with chocolates in personalised packaging. This is what Au-Dela du Chocolat offers with its 100% Breton production.
What do jewellers, cosmetics brands, spirits, and hotels – to name but a few – and luxury artisanal chocolate have in common? Au-Dela du Chocolat is a company which presents itself as a custom and select chocolatier-designer. ‘Founded in 1997, we are in a niche BtoB market, since we only sell to businesses – in all sectors – seeking to offer their customers high-quality personalised chocolates at events’, explained Marc Lafarge, the company’s CEO.
Au-Delà du Chocolat also has a passion for beautiful packaging which it manufactures itself. ‘For our personalised chocolates, we want to offer personalised high-end packaging. We have also grouped all of our manufacturing activities on a single site in Fougères near Rennes, Britany: in addition to chocolate, packaging with Les Editions du Chocolat, and POS (cardboard furniture, floater frames, etc.) with the Quart de Poil’ unit.’
As the CEO pointed out, the company’s activity has been deeply rooted in the circular economy since it was created as all manufacturing is fully integrated and the site buys its cardboard from local manufacturers who also recycle all manufacturing off-cuts from their packaging. ‘The circle is really complete’, stressed Marc Lafarge.
The company offers a wide range of tailor-made packaging solutions, from pouches to tailor-made boxes, including cases. These boxes stand out thanks to their patented wedging and closing system. Containing luxury products (perfume, cognac, jewellery, etc.), the company has developed secure and very hardy closing systems which, in the event of opening, leave traces of the break-in as the fastening points no longer close.
‘Our boxes are made from 100% recycled and recyclable compact or corrugated cardboard. We take great pride in the elegance and appearance of our boxes, which can be printed (screen printing, embossing, hot foil stamping, etc.), covered with paper and imitation PU leather, or decorated’, said Marc Lafarge.
Very responsive, the company, which has 12 core businesses, a hundred machines, and a hundred creative papers in stock, can deliver a hundred plus boxes in 24 hours if they are made from available materials. The company also provides co-packaging and can offer chocolates and another product and/or glasses, books, etc. in the same box.
‘We take the greatest care with the requests of our customers who are looking for personalised solutions’, stressed Marc Lafarge.
By developing a niche business like its own where the trade of chocolatier-designer and that of luxury packaging manufacturer share a site, Au-Delà du Chocolat fully proves this.