Norman Love of Norman Love Confections On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Listening Skills: Listening to your customers and understanding their feedback is key. By listening, you’ll get greater insights as to what they value about your product and you’ll see areas where you might need improvement. You may decide to offer more options, develop a variation on a popular product or discontinue a product after evaluating customer feedback.
As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Norman Love.
Since founding Norman Love Confections, Norman has received tremendous national and international recognition. One of the top European daily newspapers, as well as National Geographic magazine, have ranked Norman Love Confections among the top 10 chocolate shops in the world and Dessert Professional Magazine has honored Norman Love as a the first inductee into the Chocolatier Hall of Fame. A highly respected consumer rating publication recognized the company 12 times, including 6 times as the best ultra-premium chocolates in the nation. Norman and his chocolates have been featured by USA Today, The Today Show, Robb Report, InStyle, Martha Stewart Living, Forbes and O, The Oprah Magazine. Norman Love Confections was also named among the top 10 Best Chocolate Shops in the World in 2015 and 2016.
Norman Love Confections has five chocolate salons in Southwest Florida, including a salon and café at Whole Foods in Fort Myers. The company’s newest location opened in November 2020 at University Town Center (UTC) in Sarasota. Norman Love Confections has grown a vibrant e-commerce business shipping signature chocolates and specialty products to chocolate lovers around the country. Norman Love and his wife Mary started the company in Fort Myers 22 years ago, an inspiring story of creating a business from scratch, and growing it into a globally recognized brand. Rooted in the community where they’ve raised their business and family, Norman and Mary Love support more than 250 charities in Southwest Florida.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
As a kid, I grew up outside of Philadelphia and played hockey competitively. I aspired to play as high of a level as I could but when my family moved to Florida, there was no hockey there at the time, and my dream came to a crashing halt. Since I was unable to play any longer, I got my first job at Swenson’s Ice Cream. My job was simply to create the ice cream — customers could watch, I could come and go as I pleased, I just needed to make sure there was enough in the freezer.
In addition to hockey, I’d always been very interested in creative art, and in high school, taking cooking classes was a way for me to indulge in that passion. I remember attending the book fair in second grade at my elementary school, and I came home with Betty Crocker’s Boys and Girls Cookbook, so I think even in my early years, I knew I wanted to be a chef.
When I graduated from high school, I wanted to pursue the dessert side of cooking but in the U.S., there were no programs where you could specifically educate yourself on baking and pastry. While I was on a waitlist to get into the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), I began my career at a large restaurant at Deerfield Beach in Florida under a Welsh pastry chef. I later pursued several educational opportunities under the direction of wonderful mentors, including an opportunity in France. Eventually, I found my calling at the Ritz Carlton, where I spent 13 years opening new hotel locations around the world.
Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of the food brand you are leading?
While I was with the Ritz Carlton, I was selected as the U.S. captain for an international dessert competition, The World Pastry Cup in Lyon France, which took place in January 1999. My team spent 18 months preparing for the competition, and we finished in third place among the 22 nations represented. We came back to the U.S. feeling inspired.
At that time, The World Pastry Cup was the only competition of its kind. Upon my return, I connected with a friend who owned a chocolatier magazine in NYC and shared a vision to create another dessert competition. We began to organize a bi-annual international and national competition, held on opposing years in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
The second year we held the competition, TV Network was there to film it. When they looked at their ratings, they learned that Americans love to watch pastry chef competitions. TV Food Network learned of the high ratings and brought us on to help create a show called The Challenge, where we executed the talent for a baking competition. Once the show took off, I left the Ritz Carlton to pursue a career in production and add some balance back into my life. Around this same time, I also led the creation of the World Pastry Forum to provide educational opportunities to aspiring pastry chefs.
When I left the Ritz Carlton, I rented a small office space in a medical building and started making high-quality, decorative chocolates to supplement my income while we launched the production company. I visited Vegas in 2001, searching for candy boxes to start putting my chocolate in and in October of that year, I started peddling my chocolate.
In January 2002, USA Today included me in the Weekender as one of the 10 best places to buy chocolate for Valentine’s Day. At this time, I wasn’t incorporated, and I didn’t have a sign or a credit card machine, but people were seeking me out.
Four months later, Godiva knocked on my door and convinced me to create 350,000 pieces of chocolate for Nieman Marcus and 11 of their top performing stores. I recruited some professional friends to help me, and it was the biggest success of new release in the history of their company — there was 100% sell through. The next year, they asked me to make 1.3 million pieces, so I built a factory, and my career officially began as an ultra-premium confection creator.
You could say that was my “ah ha” moment. Eventually, my wife, Mary, and I founded Norman Love Confections in 2001. At that time, we found a designated building to manufacture and sell the chocolates out of and from there we’ve expanded to open several other locations throughout Florida.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
As you know, my passion for creating desserts started when I was in my youth. One of the funniest mistakes I made was when I was six years old and just getting started on this culinary adventure. Once, when I was a kid, I was baking cookies for my brother and accidentally added a quarter cup of salt instead of a quarter teaspoon. We bit into them, and our taste buds were instantly introduced to the saltiest peanut butter cookies we’d ever tasted. I learned very quickly the importance of being thorough and verifying the measurements listed in recipes. I’m sure many of you reading this have done something similar.
As a business owner, you will make hundreds of mistakes. We are all always growing and learning, no matter where we are at in our careers. The role of an entrepreneur is difficult, and you have to recognize that mistakes will happen every day. However, if you empower your team to help the company bounce back from mistakes, you’ll have more time to focus on other areas that need your attention. You can’t handle everything on your own. At some point, you have to be able to rely on your team to help you navigate mishaps and growth.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a food line? What can be done to avoid those errors?
Initially, entrepreneurs are driven by a product or service they want to provide to a group of people they identified that needs it or enjoys it. However, once the profits start coming in, they become driven by money. They lose focus on what inspired them to bring this vision to life in the first place. The product or service becomes an afterthought and short cuts are made when they become distracted by money. I encourage everyone to remember the “why” behind their business, mission and vision. When making every business decision, think about your original goals for the brand and stay true to them. Operate your business with the same integrity and commitment to excellence you did on day one.
Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
Focus on the product and strive to make it better than everyone else. In doing so, you will limit the competition. It doesn’t have to been innovative, it just has to be better than everyone else’s. For example, plenty of companies make high-end confections. To elevate our products, we source the most premium ingredients from around the world to enhance simplistic flavors. For example, when crafting our vanilla chocolate, we use Tahitian vanilla beans, which sets us apart from competitors in the same industry simply because we are focusing on high-quality ingredients. The flavors of many of our chocolates are simplistic. We just make sure they are the best. When it comes to the artistry of our chocolates, that’s simply because Americans eat with their eyes. It is what makes them stand out from the rest and provides a wow factor upon opening the box.
Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?
Oftentimes, entrepreneurs and businesses try to be or offer too much. They move away from their original concept or add a lot of other different products outside of what made them successful in the first place. Listen to your customers or clients to understand what they value about your product offering. Refine it if you must but stay true to yourself and your vision. Try not to spread yourself too thin. For me, quality is the main focus. Every day, I analyze my business from the viewpoint of curating the highest-quality chocolates the world has ever indulged in.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
Hiring a consultant is a decision that should depend on the entrepreneur’s level of experience and expertise in their field. This will vary for everyone. In my case, I went into business at the top of my career with 20+ years of experience — some within the dessert industry and some from the hospitality industry. When I launched Norman Love Confections, I did not need a consultant to help bring my vision to life because I had a wealth of experience I could leverage. However, as we look to the future, I am considering opening a new factory, and in this case, I would consider bringing on the assistance of a consultant who has experience designing food manufacturing facilities. I would look to them to advise on the design and layout so we could build it around efficiency.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
This really depends on the type of food or beverage brand that you’re trying to launch. In my case, I couldn’t get a loan early on because financial partners didn’t see the value in supporting a luxury dessert brand. We lived off our life savings to launch Norman Love Confections, and we grew the business by believing in ourselves and our product. We didn’t accrue any debt in the process either.
However, in today’s world launching a business is very expensive, so it may not be possible for an entrepreneur to launch their business without financial partners. If you have to enlist the support of a financial partner, I would exercise caution because it can backfire if you don’t have the right support. Many times, the relationship doesn’t work out, but sometimes it can be a really positive experience.
Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?
Many people file their own patents, but I believe people should hire an expert to do it for them. I use an attorney that I have a strong relationship with because the concepts can be expensive to protect.
Sourcing the highest quality ingredients has been the bread and butter of my career, which was specifically impacted by my tenure at the Ritz Carlton. I’ve found that attending trade shows I am able to identify ingredients that are aligned with the vision of my brand. The rising cost of goods has made this task more difficult, but I connect with the manufacturers to understand the variety and quality of ingredients they are offering to see what makes the most sense for our product. I recommend visiting them in person to see the ingredients or materials firsthand and to tour the facility. You’ll want to be fully invested to ensure their work ethic and the quality of their products aligns with yours. Take it a step further and ask for references before jumping into business with them.
At Norman Love Confections, we are both a manufacturer and retailer/distributor. From this standpoint, we analyze many different factors in determining where we set up our retail locations. From understanding the traffic flow to the demographic of the community to surveying the other retailers to ensuring accessibility to assessing the expense of the space, we take many considerations into account. It’s important that the population share the same values, the location fits our profile and that not only is there a request for our products, but that the customers are willing and able to pay for them.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand” and why?
1. Product & Service: Once you decide what product you will provide, source the highest-quality materials to bring it to life. Do everything within your power to ensure consistency so the same high-quality products are delivered every time. Take it a step further by delivering your products with high-quality services, and you’ll surely have repeat customers.
2. Listening Skills: Listening to your customers and understanding their feedback is key. By listening, you’ll get greater insights as to what they value about your product and you’ll see areas where you might need improvement. You may decide to offer more options, develop a variation on a popular product or discontinue a product after evaluating customer feedback.
3. Success Mindset: Approach each day with the mindset of working toward success and having a successful day. The future is reward, but you have to go to work to be successful every day or you won’t be rewarded. Show up every ready to be excellent. Go to work with purpose. Focus on your goals.
4. Tireless Commitment: Owning a business is hard, as you are responsible for so many other livelihoods. Every decision you make affects them and potentially their families too. Be prepared for tireless commitment. Every day will present new decisions and opportunities you can leverage to drive your business to success. You must always be on you’re A game and able to evaluate situations from many different perspectives and rationales.
5. Dedication: Stay true to yourself and your product. Your product is the star of the show. Don’t deviate from what brought you success in the first place. Remain dedicated to your vision and your product. Don’t get distracted by revenues and lost site of your vision.
Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?
Deliver the best product you are capable of, listen to your customers to learn how to refine it and exercise a little creativity in the process. At Norman Love Confections, we’re focused on creating craveable chocolate confections. This doesn’t necessarily mean curating the wildest flavor concoctions but simply means sourcing the highest quality ingredients that delight the taste buds and have people salivating for more. We do have fun with our product offerings though. For example, we created Advent Calendars for the holiday season, and these turned out to be a fan favorite. Everyone loves waking up and having a morsel of chocolate to start their day as they countdown the days to Christmas.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
First and foremost, Norman Love Confections is a proud supporter of the community. We contribute to the missions of many different charities, such as Golisano Children’s Hospital, Valerie’s House, the American Heart Association, United Way, Community Cooperative: Soup Kitchen, Gulf Coast Humane Society and Make a Wish Foundation — to name a few. I believe all businesses have a responsibility to be engaged in some type of philanthropy. If you want to continue to reap the rewards of success, it’s important to be generous and give back to the communities that gave you success in the first place. When revenues come in, dedicate a portion of them to a cause you and your team are passionate about, or in our case, a few causes.
The second one will come as no surprise to you. We make the world a better place by producing our chocolate confections that are both comforting and craveable. By dedicating ourselves to putting our best products forward, we know that we are delighting palates across the country with the world’s very best ingredients. Our chocolates are a part of celebrations, milestone events and every day special occasions.
To sum it up, we are spreading the love through philanthropy and chocolate.
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I believe the world needs more kindness, so I would fuel the World Kindness Movement. As I’ve matured in my career and handled many facets of business, I have personally experienced the powerful effects of kindness and respectfulness when shared with not only your customers, but also your team. As the saying goes…you catch more bees with honey.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Norman Love of Norman Love Confections On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.