How Dean's Sweets is Creating a True Sense of Place in Chocolate

If you wanted to create the ultimate Maine chocolate collection, you might consider adding local wild blueberries, maple syrup and sea salt. There’s nothing unusual about chocolatiers using local ingredients in their confections. While there are marketing and economic benefits for using of local ingredients, for Dean’s Sweets co-owners Dean and Kristin Bingham who are Maine transplants, it clearly represents more than that. Making chocolate is their way of honoring a place they love.

From Hobby to Business

Maine Mix chocolate box Melissa Mullen Photography

Like so many other chocolatiers, the path to becoming a chocolate business started as a hobby. Explains Kristin Bingham, “It was a slow transition from hobby to business, especially if you view the first few years of our business as being pretty much hobby-like. From 2004-2008, we worked in our home kitchen in Portland, Maine. We worked a few nights and a few weekends at first, taking the summers off completely because, even in Maine, it was too hot to make chocolate in our un-air-conditioned home. Dean and I both had other full-time jobs – Dean as an architect, and I as a business coach and freelance editor, so we just sort of dabbled on the business front.”

The business started with truffles, but truffles need boxes. Explains Bingham, “We had four flavors of truffles – brandy, rum, coffee, and raspberry – and it was fun to talk over dinner about designing boxes, ribbons, and tags. We took baby steps, meeting with a friend-of-a-friend who was a package designer. We inched toward building a website. Then we realized that if we’re selling chocolate, or even giving it away, we needed insurance. All these steps came one at a time over the course of our first four years.”

Bingham shares that the biggest step that launched them from part-time to full-time into the chocolate business was, strangely, the economic downturn of 2008. “The world of architecture came to a screeching stop when the stock market tumbled, so Dean’s design work all-but dried up. And though I kept my two other gigs as business coach and freelance editor, I was eager to put my time and energy into building the chocolate business. Rents were affordable-ish at that point in an up-and-coming area of Portland. So, one day we signed a three-year lease on a 700-square-foot space and suddenly, ready or not, we were really in business.”

The Maine Thing

Both Dean and Kristin love Maine but grew up elsewhere. Dean is originally from the Chicago area, and he moved to Blue Hill, Maine to pursue architecture over 40 years ago. Kristin is a more recent transplant, having moved from Boston, where she grew up, to Portland about 18 years ago. Says Kristin, “According to real Mainers (those who were born in the state), Dean and I will always be ‘from away.’ But I think we make up for that by loving Portland and Maine as much as we do. We love the coast and the mountains and the pine woods. We love the access to really great food, both at farmers’ markets and the world-class restaurants that we’re surrounded by in Portland. We are happy with snow in the winter. And we can even deal (though sometimes just barely) with the dreadful “mud season” in March. It’s definitely our home.”

Customers Buy Local

Dark and milk caramel singles Melissa Mullen Photography

Love of their adopted home state gave rise to their business, and for that, they acknowledge the help and support of their local customers. They consider themselves lucky that the opening of their first store in 2008 coincided with a brand-new movement in Portland called “Buy Local.” Says Kristin, “It’s now everywhere and, I know, it’s practically cliché, but back in 2008, it was a powerful change to many consumers’ buying habits. It meant a huge deal to our start-up business that local shoppers made it a point to come to our store to buy our chocolate instead of shopping for it at the grocery store or from a national chain.”

She adds, “Of course, Buy Local still means a great deal to us, and the practice continues to be a way of life for many Mainers. I’d estimate that roughly half of our annual business is now from customers who walk into our brick-and-mortar stores (we have two). Some of those walk-in customers are visitors, traveling to Maine ‘from away,’ but a large portion of the customers I see are familiar faces who have come to love us and make it a point to get their chocolate with us, whether for gifts or for themselves. Even more, during the weeks leading up to Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter, during those wintery/early spring months, I’d say 90% of the traffic is from local customers.”

While they have a thriving online business, serving locals is and has always been important. It’s also why they made the choice for their business to be nut-free. Explains Kristin, “About ten percent of the families who shop with us in our stores and online choose us because they have kids with nut allergies and we are a nut-free chocolatier, which is quite rare to find. We avoid using any tree nuts or ground nuts in our products and have never used them in any of our equipment so all our products are safe. An especially sweet moment is when a child with a nut allergy comes in with his or her family—and it’s the first time they’ve ever been in a chocolate store (even air-born particles can trigger a serious, possibly life-threatening allergic reaction for many people with nut allergies). The kids’ eyes open wide, and they smile ear to ear. They are truly kids in a candy store, in the best possible way. It’s such a fun moment to be a part of.”

Local Ingredients

Buy Local goes both ways and Kristin says they make it a point to purchase their ingredients from Maine sources, adding “There’s so much in our state that we love, it makes it very easy to support other local businesses!”

Blueberries 

For Kristin, Maine blueberries are a classic summer must-have. She says, “For our truffles and squares, we use dried wild Maine blueberries. They are the small ones, almost the size of peppercorns. We purchase them dried so they pack as much flavor as possible into our chocolate. And luckily, we can find them all year round, so we don’t have to wait till summer to enjoy them.”

Maple syrup

Like wild blueberries, maple syrup is another food indigenous to North America. The business gets their organic maple syrup from Maine Maple Products in Madison, Maine. Says Kristin, “We call them up and they deliver their dark amber liquid gold to our door!”

Beer

Beer might seem like a surprising ingredient to use in chocolate, but it was a must. Says Kristin, “Beer is a big deal in our small city. There are dozens of small craft breweries within just a few miles of our two stores. In 2008, this wasn’t the case. Allagash Brewing was one of the first major players in the neighborhood, and it was an easy choice to use their Allagash Black stout (now called “North Sky”) in our chocolate, making for one of our most popular truffles (not surprisingly called “stout.”) This beer/chocolate combo also happens to be non-dairy/vegan, substituting the beer for the cream, a well-kept culinary secret.”

Dairy products

The Bingham’s drive 10 minutes away to get cream at Smiling Hill Farm, a family farm that’s been in production since the 1720s. Says Kristin, “We call ahead and they have it ready. We know the people in the barn, and we know the people who manage the dairy. It’s local and sustainable. It doesn’t get any better than that. Well, it does actually, because we have found the Smiling Hill Farm cream is slightly higher in butterfat, which makes the chocolate even better!”

They get butter delivered from a local producer, Casco Bay Creamery. Quality is top notch and Kristin shares, “This is butter made from cows without growth hormones. Butter made by people we know. We first met Alicia and Jennell, the owners of Casco Bay Creamery, at the Fryeburg Fair, an agricultural fair in Maine – the kind with frying pan tosses and barkers and lots and lots of farm animals. As soon as we tasted Casco Bay butter, we knew we had to work with them. We’re lucky that they are building their business a town away in Westbrook, Maine. Working with friends who are also making the BEST butter in sustainable ways is the BEST.”  

Sea salt 

An ingredient that finds its way into many confections and renowned flavor enhancer is sea salt. Shares Kristin, “We have happily worked with Stephen and Sharon, owners of Maine Sea Salt Company since we started making Maine sea salt caramels back around 2008. We met Stephen at the Fryeburg Fair too! And if you are in Downeast Maine, in Marshfield, you can stop there for a tour. If no one greets you upon arrival, just honk the horn and they’ll come out and find you!”

The Maine sea salt caramel sauce won a Good Food award in 2020, a prestigious national prize, based on taste, authenticity, and responsible sourcing of ingredients.

Both the caramel sauce and the hot fudge sauce are made with only five ingredients each. They try to keep it simple and let the flavors speak for themselves.

The hot fudge sauce is Kristin’s favorite of all their products and while they don’t make ice cream, it’s a pairing she highly recommends. It might just make you fall in love with Maine too.