Pure Chocolate’s recent collaboration with Jablum to produce the new Jablum Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee-infused chocolate bar is part of a wider strategy of partnering with different companies. With a growing portfolio of successful white-labelled and co-branded products amounting to approximately 30 per cent of Pure Chocolate’s business revenue, its aim is to enhance its brand image through these collaborations.

Even with a strong reputation in the local chocolate industry, having won international awards in recent years, including two silver awards from the International Chocolate Awards two weeks ago as well as the Pitch Live and New Product of the Year – International awards from the UK’s Speciality & Fine Food Fair this month, Pure Chocolate’s co-founder, Wouter Tjeertes, believes more can always be done to enhance brand and reputation.

“I am finding strategic alliances with companies that have a good branding position so that if I align myself with that, it looks good on us, too,” he explained. “We are not partnering with everybody, but we are partnering smartly.”

These collaborations benefit the chocolate manufacturer not only from a marketing perspective but also from a sales standpoint. By partnering with other companies and creating white-labelled products (items produced by one company but sold under another company’s branding) and co-branded products, Pure Chocolate expands their revenue potential beyond what would be achievable with just their own branded chocolates.

“If you are only trying to sell your own branded product, you are just limiting your revenue because if you are in all the stores you can’t do anything more,” Tjeertes elaborated. “But if you now co-brand or you put another brand on it, all of a sudden you can have two brands coming out of the same factory in the same source and nobody would mind.”

According to the chocolate maker, the partnership with Jablum was initiated by Jablum’s interest in expanding their product portfolio and generating additional revenue through value-added products. Pure Chocolate handles the entire process from manufacturing the bars using Jablum’s coffee to packaging the finished product with Jablum’s branding and logo. It is a white labelling arrangement, whereby Pure Chocolate provides a complete solution for Jablum.

Each collaboration comes with its own structure, depending on the preferences of the partner. In cases such as the white-labelling partnership with Jablum, a completely personalised product is made for the partner without any mention of Pure Chocolate, but usually there is a gentleman’s agreement that if customers inquire about the source of the product, the partner will refer them to Pure Chocolate.

Alternatively, in a co-branding agreement, Pure Chocolate’s name and logo is included on the product and a different pricing structure is applied to the collaboration.

This flexible approach to partnerships allows the chocolate maker to create mutually beneficial arrangements that cater to the specific branding and marketing needs of each collaboration.

There is a partnership with Worthy Park Estate, for example, which is a one-of-a-kind collaboration, in terms of the product. 100 kg of premium quality Jamaican cocoa beans was barrel-aged in 100 litres of Worthy Park select rum for 12 months to produce this special edition, which features both Worthy Park’s and Pure Chocolate’s branding on the packaging of the chocolate bar.

Similarly, a co-branded product with Round Hill Hotel and Villas features the branding of both companies.

“So what is happening there is that in collaboration with Round Hill’s team we have created this chocolate bar to give them an amenity that is uniquely Jamaican and personalised for them,” Tjeertes said. “And in return it puts us in the limelight to show people what we can do.”

In contrast, Pure Chocolate has a white-labelling arrangement with Manzil, an Indian-fusion restaurant in Ocho Rios, to provide them with their own branded after-dinner chocolate, specially crafted for the restaurant, devoid of any Pure Chocolate logos.

“The chocolate is infused with Indian flavours, such as cardamom and fennel, creating a distinctive and personalised offering for Manzil’s patrons,” the chocolate maker revealed.

Another white-labelling partnership involves Rose Hill, a Jamaican company that cultivates and supplies psilocybin products. Psilocybin is a psychedelic compound found in specific mushroom species, displaying encouraging possibilities for medicinal and therapeutic applications.

Rose Hill has a consumer arm of the business called Patoo that began collaborating with Pure Chocolate two years ago to produce 100 per cent organic cacao, psilocybin chocolate bars.

“So we manufacture it for them, package everything, and then we send it off to them,” Tjeertes disclosed. “The packaging was created by them, though, but, of course, with guidance from me because we have the experience in packaging and what needs to be done, and we have the contacts for getting that done quickly.”

“We have different approaches,” he explained further. “Either we allow people to use our die lines [the templates or outlines that define the shape, size, and dimensions of the packaging or wrapper for a chocolate product] and we charge them a fee for that, or we guide them towards their own packaging with the knowledge that we have. In that way we are actually able to turn around new products for other people quite quickly.”

Tjeertes believes Pure Chocolate’s collaborations with other companies offer a 50/50 balance between revenue and marketing benefits. But he has a more holistic motivation as well. Having recently initiated a project to rehabilitate Jamaican cocoa farms, he underscores the significance of these collaborations as an avenue for expanding the market for farmers by utilising more of their high-quality cocoa.

The company has other co-branding projects in the pipeline, including two export-oriented projects that involve collaborations with overseas partners. They will bear Pure Chocolate’s Jamaican stamp as well as the branding of the foreign partners. These projects are expected to come to fruition early next year.