Vosges Chocolate Owner To Launch Mass-Market Chocolate Brand
By Soyoung Kwak in Food on May 6, 2012 6:00PM
The owner of Chicago-based Vosges Haut-Chocolate will be making her mass-market chocolate debut at a store near you. Katrina Markoff, the owner and brains behind the Vosges $30 million chocolate empire, has developed and launched Wild Ophelia, the not-so-upscale version of her best-selling Vosges chocolates. The Wild Ophelia chocolate bars cost around half as much as Vosges chocolate bars but appear to remain true to Markoff's vision and branding.
Markoff decided to venture into producing chocolate for mass-market distributors such as Walgreens and Whole Foods as a response to customers' requests.
Markoff said the idea for Wild Ophelia came about 18 months ago when "we were getting a lot of requests for Vosges to expand into larger retailers, and I really didn't want to go that route.""I wanted to keep Vosges a little more precious and artisanal and boutique, and I was worried if you start doing that distribution, the brand might lose that intimacy."
In a world where big names like Hershey, Godiva, and Lindt reign supreme, Markoff remains confident that Vosges and Wild Ophelia will be able to pull through in each of their intended markets. As noted in the Chicago Tribune, Markoff indicated that she expects Wild Ophelia to become a $20 million to $30 million dollar company within three years, while she anticipates Vosges to become a $100 million dollar business within three years as well.
We are already fans of Markoff's inventive Vosges flavors, so we are definitely excited to try her Wild Ophelia chocolate bars.
You can find Wild Ophelia chocolate bars here.