A sweet story about a chocolate shop
The tale of Confections with Convictions in Kalamazoo, plus news on Uptown Kitchen, Bare Hands Brewery and more
Dale Anderson was counseling young people in the juvenile justice system in Kalamazoo and realized they needed jobs.
Their family systems didn’t help them. Maybe jobs would. Though he had more experience advocating for peace than building a business, he got to work. “I wanted to start a business to provide employment opportunities for kids with felony convictions,” he said.
He spent two years working on a business that would install solar panels before he realized that labor laws wouldn’t let him hire teenagers to go up on roofs and use power tools.
After buying some fancy chocolates online he came up with “Confections with Convictions” as a name and started learning how to make chocolates so that he could then teach the teens how to do the hands-on work. “It should have been (called) Confections with Adjudications, but it didn’t have the ring,” he joked.
Kalamazoo didn’t have a chocolate shop at the time. Anderson took a class online, which he compared to learning how to play basketball online. “You can learn the theory. The moves are a whole different thing,” he said.
There were other classes, as well as trial and error, and the shop opened at 116 W. Crosstown Parkway in December 2010 with 12 different flavors of truffles.
He would work on Monday as a counselor and also as a mediator for employment disputes at Western Michigan University. That’s how he made his living as he worked with 15- to 18-year-olds at the shop.
From the beginning, he used fair trade chocolate, figuring that if he’s helping young people in Michigan he should assure that young people harvesting beans in Ivory Coast and Ghana were also treated fairly. “Fair trade is not a perfect system, but it gives you some reasonable assurance there’s oversight into what’s going on,” he said. Sourcing fair trade chocolate is challenging and the shop gets large amounts of chocolate via Italy and Peru.
What started as a dozen flavors has expanded to more than 100 flavors and products. In the kitchen, Anderson and others temper chocolate and add flavorings. They make truffles by hand, as well as an array of caramels, barks, chocolate-covered nuts, and chocolate syrup.
I’ve been to a good number of chocolate shops. Goshen is lucky to have two. Not only does Confections with Convictions have a great story, but its products are really good.
The case with truffles and caramels usually has 90 or so options. Every new customer gets to pick one to try after the staff asks, “Do you like white, milk or dark chocolate?”
I got one with Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout. And filled a box to bring home that included truffles infused with sea salt, miso and wine, not to mention caramels with sorghum and a blend of fig, ginger, orange and cinnamon. The shop creates an impressive map for your chocolate box that helps you know what you’re eating after you get home.
Bags of barks and bars are on the shelves. I really like the chocolate sauce made in the shop with Michigan honey.
Over the years, 38 people have benefited from working in Anderson’s shop. During the pandemic, referral sources for teens dried up and Anderson turned to people a bit older who were recovering from addiction and needed work. Jennifer Faketty, who is planning a home for those in recovery, was one of those and has worked there for three years. Anderson suggested she buy the shop from him. She’s doing that with investor Stephanie VandenBosch over time and he’s staying on to help.
Friend Eric Strader has known Anderson and has been going to the shop for years. He tipped me off and met me there and Anderson gave both of us a tour. The organization and cleanliness of the kitchen was amazing and the flavors are too. Confections with Convictions isn’t just a business with great products. It’s a business that is focused on human profit and development. I’ll support those as much as I can.
The shop is open today on a rare Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. because of Valentine’s Day this week. About a third of its annual sales are during the Christmas season, but Valentine’s Day is busy too. The usual hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. The shop does ship its products.
While I was there, a man dropped off a piece of butterscotch strawberry pie for Anderson. The man used to be homeless and perched in the alley behind the shop. Anderson and his employees helped the man regain housing and more, so now he shows up with pie.
It’s another sweet story from a sweet place.
I’m hungry. Let’s eat.
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