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Move Over Willy Wonka, Vere Is Here
August 2005, NY Post
by Coeli Carr
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WHEN Kathy Moskal created Vere, her new chocolate venture headquartered in Chelsea, she didn't have extensive culinary experience.
But she knew that, by "fulfilling a need I saw in the marketplace," her company had the potential to take off like a rocket.
Moskal sees no difference between bringing edibles versus any other manufactured product to market.
"It's all the same thing," said Moskal. "You identify a product that doesn't yet exist, and then make it really high quality. The more unique you are, the easier it is for people to remember you. But,” she adds, “just a delicious something is not going to do it, because you still have to get it to the consumer. And the best way to get it to the consumer is to fill a niche in the market no one else is filling."
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Moskal is no stranger to the value of this approach.
She co-founded a hosiery enterprise, called Hue, 27 years ago. Hue's designs were so hip, bold and youth-oriented that they created a whole new category in that usually staid, boring market.
Having sold Hue in 1992 and leaving two years later, Moskal is now back from her "retirement" with a new business, which emanated from her simple desire to find a great tasting chocolate for a diabetic friend.
Not happy with what was already on the market, a year-and-a-half ago Moskal researched, hired a chef and created a state of the art production facility four blocks from her office, so she'd have more control over her confectionary output.
Now, with six employees (soon to be 12), she's set to launch Vere, which is pronounced "very" and comes from the Latin for "the true, the authentic and the real."
"The need was to make a very high-end, sophisticated chocolate that was also really really good for you," she said.
And so, a niche was born.
What makes Moskal’s products - which range from truffles, clusters, ganaches and vegan mini-brownies - unique?
"We're in the sweets business, but we're not sweet," she said. "Most chocolate has way too much sugar."
More consumers than one might expect share Moskal’s palate.
"They said, ‘Wow, you can really taste the chocolate!’" said Moskal, describing the reactions of many of the huge number of people who visited her booth at the recent Fancy Foods Show at the Jacob Javits Center.
Gourmet retailers from countries as far away as Australia, Hong Kong and Italy expressed interest in carrying Vere.
In addition to high-in-anti-oxidant Ecuadorian chocolate and natural sugars, her secret is a proprietary blend made primarily of fructose.
Moskal noted that, unlike sucrose, which she described as leeching vitamins from the body, fructose is satiating and does not spike blood sugar.
But great taste alone isn’t enough in the food business.
"People are under the impression that, if they have a great product, somehow everybody will know it," she said.
"It’s absolutely not true. If you can't communicate uniqueness, you can have the best product in the world and it will go nowhere."
Moskal believes one of the best ways to communicate a food product’s singularity is through packaging.
"Everything should uphold the fact that your product is unique - the photography, the colors you choose, how you write about it on the package," she said.
Her own products’ presentation includes an idiosyncratic macron (a straight horizontal mark) over the final "e" of Vere, and photographic images of the ingredients, such as chocolate swirls and cocoa powder.
"Basically, we're saying that we’re not your grandmother’s chocolate," she said.
Even her product categories are catchy. In addition to "chocolate," there are "bakes," "bars" and "nibbles."
In the fall, when the products are available to the public (check www.veregoods.com), Moskal will also introduce "cold," a category that will focus on ice cream and other frozen products.
Moskal concedes that, because too much sugar makes her feel uncomfortable, her chocolates have wound up filling not only a market niche, but a personal one as well.
"I have made a product I can eat," she laughed.
"I've also never been so popular in my life!"
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