Entrepreneur sees rich future in gourmet chocolate

WEST JORDAN — Entrepreneur Nick Frappier envisions a day when people can finish a perfect dinner out by having a perfect chocolate dessert.

"I believe it will happen in my lifetime, but I expect I'll be ordering the fruit tart for a long time," Frappier said last week as he planned a presentation to a group of 25 Harmons food store department heads who are about to allocate shelf space for at least three lines of his imported, ultra-premium chocolate bars.

They gave him an hour Monday morning — Frappier could easily do 10 — to describe the pedigree and iterations of chocolate. Despite a history dating back 38 generations, the makers who do chocolate as good as chocolate gets, instead of doing it good enough to get by, make up 1/10,000 of the market, he said.

Marketing and money and a seven-digit bottom line aren't of primary concern to Frappier and his group of listeners. He has a master of fine arts degree from the University of Utah and is a painter by training who just got to thinking two years ago how he might find a way to import the kind of gourmet chocolate, Italian sausage and other products he loves but could rarely find here.

A job at Caputo's Deli while in school gave him a working relationship with 200 different cheeses and about 100 olive oils. More importantly, it gave legs to a dream that he has managed to execute with A Priori (www.aprioridistribution.com) and the guidance of The Foundry, a program offered through the U.'s Eccles School of Business designed as a peer-reviewed small-business workshop for young entrepreneurs with a bright idea.

Frappier doesn't know how bright his idea is, but he is a full-on geek about chocolate. His line can't be called cheap — one bar the size of a Hershey bar goes for $9. He describes chocolate using words like "floral," "finish" and "varietal" that if you're not listening closely make him sound like a bit of a snob.

"Oh, I'm a total snob," he said, "but I'm not trying to keep it a secret. I'm trying to let everybody in on it."

He's selling in four states, including Utah, and everything is in limited supply. That's not intentional to jack the price up; quality always takes time to get right, in chocolate or anything else, he said.

The business side of his brain tells him there is a trend in food gaining momentum.

"It's not somehow changing the pedestrian tastes, for lack of a better word," he said. "I think Americans are in the first phase of a paradigm shift in their relationship to food.