Woow, it’s been almost 2 years since I posted my last post. A real shame. Well, quite some things have changed since. Let me start with the most easy one: I dropped Belgiandelicacies.com. I had no time anymore to work on the project and I get more and more convinced about the importance of focussing on 1 thing (not that I already succeed in doing that, but OK, I try 🙂 ).
Dropping Belgiandelicacies.com was a pretty hard decission: it was the first e-project I ever started working on. At that time, the idea was still to create a webshop to supply the entire world with Belgian chocolates and beers. Back in 2002-2003 there was not yet that much out there. Nowadays, I wouldn’t try that again: there is way to much competition for Belgian products (both online and offline) and margins are so low, that it doesn’t seem to be worth the effort anymore.
Besides: even if it would have been a good-running e-project, I still hope I can tell my grandchildren something different then „I sold chocolate bars to the US, despite half of them being melted upon arrival” 🙂 So, I took the hard decision and pulled that plug.
I still have the website’s archive, though. Just in case I would ever…. Nope, I won’t 🙂 Johan
yeah, that market must be crazy. Literally every single chocolate in grocers like Trader Joe’s is Belgian (Callebaut if I’m not mistaken — but not sold as Callebaut of course)…
Same thing with beer (Stella is everywhere, but also Hoegaerden and even more exotic Abbay beers). Additionally, also “Belgian-style” beers are very popular (“Belgian-style” meaning they actually just ripped us off 🙂 )
If anything, a lot of places could use a “frituur”: I miss that, but that’s hard to export 🙂
Well, what can we say… 🙂
Callebaut indeed has a very big market share in chocolate worldwide, though they are just a wholesaler of chocolate drops, and big tablets. These are then melted again by the chocolate houses and brands to make figurines, pralines, regular bars and so on…
Personally I think beers are even “worse”. I found brands in Florida, which you can find in Belgium only just within a couple of miles around the brewery itself. You can’t find it in the rest of Belgium, but you can find it in America. Amazing actually, but I guess it’s a real honor for the breweries as well.
I don’t think it’s hard to export a “fritkot”. All it takes is an entrepreneur with a bit of money who is prepared to work through the paperwork (importing food into the US, you know). But once all is set up, I’m convinced it’s a gold mine. Look at the guy with the Belgian waffles in NY city. In just a couple of years he had 10 vans spread all over NY. It’s really amazing when you can realize such a thing as “little Belgian” in “big America” 🙂
Speaking as a Belgian business owner in both Belgium and the US, i must say we have tried the chocolates importing thing, and it worked for us. We sold our entire inventory within months (350kg) and decided to focus on our core business which is IT (Webdesign, SEO, Consultancy, ..).
there is much more money to be made in that field than chocolates or beer.
Food and the Entertainment industry is really big here in Florida, but they always want more and more for less and less money. Your profit margin is just not there anymore..
Focus on something else, DelrayComputers.com might be looking to open a new office location!
Thanks,
Kev
PS: don;t be fooled about “Belgian Chocolates in the US”. Campbell’s (from Campbell’s Soup) bought Godiva, so they all make it in New York or New Jersey, meaning the “Belgian Chocolate” as we know it, in the US it is “Americanized”!