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About Sweet Lollapalooza

Founded by chef turned chocolatier Brett Roy, Sweet Lollapalooza was built with one idea - to produce fresh chocolates made by hand, using only the best ingredients, including some of the rarest chocolate on earth.  We don't include added preservatives, extra sugars and other additives that give mass-produced chocolate an extra-long shelf life. We make our chocolates fresh every day.

After more than a decade of hand-crafting premium chocolates from the highest quality cacao, Sweet Lollapalooza has become an award-winning chocolate producer, internationally renowned for our signature bonbons, and named one of the top 10 chocolatiers in North America. Taste them for yourself -- each morsel is a unique and memorable indulgence you can feel good about. Read more about the health benefits of chocolate in our blog.

OUR DIFFERENCE

Our products are handcrafted, not manufactured. They’re not uniform, but rather all wonderfully unique. We carefully prepare each piece by hand, cutting, shaping, dipping and packing our chocolates with the highest attention to detail.  A single bonbon can take up to three days to produce. 

Each Sweet Lollapalooza fine chocolate starts from the finest quality chocolate and ingredients, doing as little as possible to them to maintain their natural essence. Using only a fraction of the sugar found in mass-produced chocolate, our fine chocolates are more intense in flavour, higher quality and better for you. 

The chocolate we use is among the world’s rarest, in fact, our Pure Nacional from Peru is considered the rarest chocolate in the world and it’s only available in Alberta at Sweet Lollapalooza.  Our chocolate comes from Valrhona, which establishes direct trade relationships with its growers. These long-term partnerships ensure that the producers benefit from stable revenue and support. Valrhona provides the producers with tools to enhance the value of their land and enable them to produce higher quality cocoa. In return, Valrhona benefits from a high level of commitment to proven methods of harvesting, ensuring the finest cocoas of the most exceptional quality. So, not only does our chocolate taste great, it feels great to know it’s steeped in integrity.

Just as we won't rush production and carefully source our ingredients, we won't extend our products' life with added preservatives. Our products are fresh and made daily, which means they need to be savoured in the moment rather than saved for months on a shelf.

OUR TEAM

Meet the award-winning chocolatier and a few of our cocoa farmers.

Chocolatier Brett Roy

Brett got his first exposure to working with chocolate as a young chef at the Conrad Hilton resort on the Gold Coast of Australia, where he grew up. There he apprenticed under some of the finest chefs and pastry chefs in the world. Later in his career, he decided to take his love of chocolate seriously and pursue the specialized training he needed to truly master the art of making high-quality chocolates and confections.

He trained in Quebec and throughout the United States before spending time over the past few years at Valrhona’s Grand Chocolate school in France (taking further specialization programs with Valrhona in Brooklyn and Japan). Brett has earned Valrhona’s coveted Expert Chocolatier designation and was named one of the Top 10 Chocolatiers in North America by the Dessert Professional panel in New York in 2015.  His chocolate creations have taken home dozens of international medals at the International Chocolate Awards hosted in London England.  He has a real passion for improving what he does every day, which takes him around the globe to train with experts and artists.

One of the chocolates we're proud to feature and which we've won awards with internationally, is Pure Nacional from Peru. We have exclusive access to this chocolate in our region and we're part of a very small community of chocolatiers that work with this rare chocolate.

The DNA of Pure Nacional is extremely rare. Until the early 20th century, Nacional, a member of the Forastero family, one of the three main genetic categories of cacao, was widely grown in Ecuador, which was then the world’s largest cacao producer. But Nacional succumbed to disease and was thought to be extinct, until a small number of trees were found growing on Don Fortunato’s farm in Peru at an altitude above 3,500 feet, which is rare as well because cacao rarely grows above 2,000 feet. The chocolate is intense, with a floral aroma and a persistent mellow richness. Its lack of bitterness is remarkable.

The Nacional cacao has an unusual and precious characteristic: some of the beans are white, not the usual purple, which produces a more smooth-tasting, less acidic chocolate. It's believed that the white beans are mutations that happen when trees are left undisturbed for hundreds of years.

There aren’t many of these trees on the farm, and it requires a rare chocolate longitudinal conch in Switzerland, created in 1879, to turn these delicate beans into fine chocolate. Which is why chocolate made from 100 percent white beans is extremely expensive and very hard to find.  Only a few chocolatiers world-wide have access to it.  

If you haven't tried Pure Nacional yet, you really should treat yourself.  It's an incredible chocolate experience. 

Don Fortunato harvests his white cacao beans and prepares to lead them out of the farm by burro

It takes an incredible team from across the globe and close to home to bring you our chocolates.  From our hard-working producers in the cocoa fields and the dairy farmers in Alberta, to the passionate team serving you at the counter. We hope you enjoy the experience.

We’re always looking for great people to join the family.  If you’re passionate and interested in learning more, drop us a note.

IN THE NEWS

HAVE A LOOK AT WHAT OTHERS HAVE BEEN SAYING

Chatelaine Magazine

Named us one of the 9 best chocolate shops in Canada. We're honoured.

American Express Essentials Magazine listed us as one of the best Artisanal Chocolates in the World.

Sweet Lollapalooza recognized as one of the best chocolatiers in the world. Edmonton continues to make a name for itself on the worldwide food scene. But does the international recognition pay off locally? Kent Morrison reports.

WATCH THE NEWS CLIP HERE

Brett makes hot chocolate with CTV morning host, Stacey Brotzel, after winning 4 gold medals and 6 silver medals in the Canadian Final of the International Chocolate Awards in September 2017. Thanks for all your support Stacey!   

WATCH THE CLIP HERE

Edmonton AM

Listen to our interview with Mark Connolly about the Japanese documentary on  Karoi Icho

Listen

Chocolate under threat?

Global TV explores the environmental threats putting a strain on chocolate plantations worldwide.