The Sweet Story of Shane Confectionery | The Chocolate Professor

Ryan and Eric Berley, owners of Shane Confectionery

Established in 1863, Shane Confectionery is recognized as “America’s oldest, continuously operated candy shop.” Located on 110 Market Street in Old City, Philadelphia, this landmark is celebrated for its nostalgic house-made confections, such as buttercreams, malt balls, and clear toy candies. Visitors are also drawn to the historical décor and period costumes worn by salesclerks. While Shane Confectionery has received national acclaim for its looks, the candy shop is more than a tourist attraction.

What sets Shane Confectionery apart is a commitment to sourcing quality ingredients, as evidenced by the extensive network of suppliers detailed in their mission. This includes “local regenerative A2 heritage milk from Origin” and hazelnuts sourced through the Hybrid Hazelnut Consortium at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The current stewards of Shane Confectionery, brothers Ryan and Eric Berley, also chose to go beyond preserving Philadelphia’s rich candy history by adding a bean-to-bar chapter to its story. This strategic move aligns with their mission: “to serve, delight, and transport customers in America’s Oldest Continuously Operating Confectionery Shop, by interpreting the historic candy and chocolate-making traditions of Philadelphia.”

We talked to Shane’s co-owner Eric Berley to learn more about the vision behind the company’s craft chocolate line.

You and your brother Ryan bought Franklin Fountain nearly 2 decades ago, then purchased Shane’s. What prompted you and your brother Ryan to make these leaps?

When we opened a small corner soda fountain called The Franklin Fountain in 2004, I dreamed of making homemade ice cream a part of the experience. It became an immediate summertime success story.

Shane Candies America’s oldest confectionery, located mid-block, had been an existing neighboring business since 1863. We purchased and renovated the candy shop in 2010 as a response to several business needs, [like] offering sales outside of the summer and employment to workers year-round. The back room at Shane’s also became our first block-specific ice cream production space.

The attention to detail in refurbishing items for the shop is remarkable. Could you tell us about some of the unique items and their stories?

Laurel Burmeister with ice cream antiques

One of the more exciting discoveries that we made during our renovations of Shane’s was the beautiful yellow pine flooring lurking under the asbestos tiles. Visitors are always excited by our manual elevator that is pulled by a thick ship’s rope, to move products and equipment between the cellar and second floor at Shane’s.

In the middle/back of Shane’s is our chocolate café where we installed a pressed tin ceiling that we salvaged and restored from an old ice cream shop located at 112 Market Street (which we have once again turned into an ice cream parlor).

Above in the second-floor kitchen we have our massive 6-foot wide, 1910s, cast iron, cream beater that has been churning out buttercream for over 100 years.

A few years ago, Kevin Paschall became Shane’s full-time chocolate-maker. Why was it important for Shane’s to join the bean-to-bar chocolate movement?

Kevin Paschall, chocolate maker at Shane Confectionery

We wanted to be confident that our guiding principle of integrity was reflected in all aspects of our products, and conventional chocolate is produced under obscured conditions with unscrupulous practices.

In late fall of 2014 Tegan Hagy, who had started a small bean to bar chocolate business called Love Bar at Globe Dye Works was looking to transition her career and reached out to me personally. I was cautiously optimistic and intrigued. To us she was a pioneer, putting Mexican beans in her suitcase and flying them across the border. It was all so romantic and adventurous to me – I was hooked.

Kevin was there from the start and has grown the scope of the project over the course of 8 years. We boldly tasked him with learning how to turn beans into chocolate, new to us all, with Tegan’s guidance. To first showcase our new chocolate, we had Kevin curate a menu of historically inspired drinking chocolates to be sold in our new backroom chocolate café. Next, we asked Kevin to start producing chocolate bars. Eventually Kevin was able to produce enough chocolate to switch our couverture, and all chocolate products sold at Shane’s, over to our house-made chocolate.

Tell us more about the line of chocolate bars. What cacao origins are you currently working?

For our single origin bars and seasonal single origin truffles, we are currently working with Tumaco in Colombia, Asochivite in Guatemala, Öko-Caribe in the Dominican Republic, and Maya Mountain in Belize [all sourced through transparent cacao broker Uncommon Cacao. Read more about Uncommon Cacao.

For our blended couvertures for candies, we’re working with mostly Ghanaian beans. In the next few months, we will be switching out the Guatemala for Kablon [Farm], in the Philippines.

Our Benjamin Jackson bar is made in honor of one of Philadelphia’s first well-established chocolate makers. Shane’s continues Jackson’s tradition, on his same Old City block, roasting and grinding cacao to reproduce the flavor and texture consistent with 18th century ingredients and milling. Coarsely stone- ground cacao and unrefined cane sugar give this bar its distinct crunchy grit.

This summer, inspired by Raaka’s Waffle Cone bars, we created a line of Waffle Cone Ice Cream Bars – a true marriage of our two brands, Franklin Ice Cream and Shane Confectionery.

The Vanilla White Chocolate Waffle bar is made by refining fragrant Madagascar vanilla into our creamy white chocolate, and sprinkling it with crunchy waffle cone pieces and bright rainbow jimmies.

The Red Raspberry Sherbet Waffle Cone bar reminds us of summer and bright, all-natural raspberry sorbet. Tart, red raspberries are refined with our luscious white chocolate and topped with crisp waffle cone pieces. During the bustling summer months, the tantalizing aroma of freshly cooked maple waffle cones, destined for The Franklin Fountain, drifts through our kitchens, permeating our shop and enchanting the streets of Old City, Philadelphia.

Your chocolate mold has an intriguing story. What’s the inspiration behind the design?

The shape and form of all our 2.1oz chocolate bars are based on 18th century etchings of Benjamin Jackson chocolate bars as advertised by his wife posthumously; these etchings are the first depiction of a chocolate bar.

Collaboration is at the heart of Shane’s work. The hazelnuts used in your gianduja spread and gianduiottos are sourced through a partnership with Rutgers University. Can you elaborate on the significance of this collaboration? Any other collaborations you’d like to elaborate on?

Call me a nutcase! I read in the New York Times that the best pizza in New York was in Jersey City. As a Philadelphian, I needed to read on! I read about Chef Dan Richer at Razza Pizza Artigianale serving a chocolate hazelnut dessert pizza. I drove there to speak with him, and he promptly gave me a 5-lb bag of unshelled hazelnuts from Rutgers University. Later, we met with Dr. Tom Molnar at Rutgers, who leads scientists and students in developing disease-resistant hazelnuts that can last in Zone 7 conditions, that are also the most flavorful hazelnuts available outside of Italy.

For the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s opening of their renovated wing, we created a dark-milk chocolate pretzel bar. The pretzels in the bar come from a little known multigenerational hard pretzel baker named Shuey’s Pretzels in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who uses coal firing which keeps the moisture low (which is important for chocolate work). I love the focus on craft and the people we get to work with; it’s a richly colored supply chain.

We’ve also recently collaborated with a local Japanese brand Rikumo/Morihata of Ardmore, PA, which sources fine goods from Japan. For them we have created a Kyoto Matcha White Chocolate and Toasted Rice inclusion bar, that we will also be selling in our shop this month.

You’ve mentioned “À La Mère de Famille” as one of your inspirations. Can you elaborate on that? What other companies inspire you?

On my honeymoon in 2011, my wife Kiersten and I visited the original storefront of À La Mere de Famille in Paris, [which has been operating] since 1761. As a heritage brand, they make beautifully packaged chocolate gifts in a setting reminiscent of Shane Confectionery. Their sourcing practices are also in alignment with the bean-to-bar’s transparent trade approach. Read more about À La Mère de Famille.

For me, US inspirations include specific help from Jael Skeffington at French Broad Chocolate who gave us the name of their packaging supplier that we now use to make our chocolate bar boxes. Todd [Masonis], Greg [D’Alesandre] and Elaine [Wherry] at Dandelion are all such fun and amazing in their own ways. The leading lights at Fruition [Chocolate Works] Bryan and Dahlia [Graham] are consummate professionals and beautifully great parents. Adam Dick of Dick Taylor [Craft Chocolate] is always at the ready to give helpful equipment advice.

Those leaders model the standards we all aspire to. The love within the craft industry is real and felt. Specialty chocolate hospitality is quite personal and unique. Long ago at a New York chocolate show, the inspirational and late Mott Green of the Grenada Chocolate Company invited me to visit him in the Caribbean, offering me a mat next to a boiler to sleep on.

The global chocolate community is also an inspiration. From Julia Zotter’s family in Austria. Read more about Zotter. SOMA in Toronto and Dylan Butterbaugh at Mānoa there are so many friends and resources for us to build connection and support. The sheer energy of the movement is unbelievable and uplifting.

There are too many inspirational authors, suppliers, educators, and enthusiasts within the craft movement to mention, but I’m personally inspired by Hazel Lee, creator of Taste with Colour, chocolate tasting with Chloé Doutre-Roussel, [author] of The Chocolate Connoisseur, Maricel Presilla, whose many books have been inspirations, production advisors Snooky Robins [of Dandelion Chocolate], Bill Copeland and Lorenzo of Packint Machines.

You and your brother have been running Shane’s for 12 years. Looking back, what are you the proudest? Any highlights you’d like to share?

Shane Confectionaery team Ryan Berley, Laure Burmeisterl, Pavia Burroughs, and Jim

I’m most proud of the whole team’s dedication to excellence. We’re all works in progress at becoming smarter and better versions of ourselves, wearing new hats, and learning from our mistakes. I’m really proud of the current teammates who have stuck with the company through some really hard times. I am proud of the original visioning team, [brother] Ryan [Berley], Emily Malina, Lindsay Yurcaba alongside my wife-Kiersten Berley, who provided integrity from the beginning to the initial 2009 overhaul, and who also continue to see a vision of greater depth and integrity for the experience we create for our customers.

I am proud of Kevin [Paschall], who we tasked with learning how to make chocolate, and reading a lot of history books about chocolate. He was charged with figuring out the “how.” He’s literally been a self- taught maker. We did very little to teach him the making side of the business. He has been the one dedicated and focused to take this mini business within the brand-originally called Chocolate Works to a full-fledged holistic part of the Shane brand.

The Central Culture of Positive and Personal Customer Service at Shane Confectionery is attributed to Laurel Burmeister, store manager today. The packaging, window displays and so much more are a testament of the design and artistry of Pavia Burroughs. Ryan has also played a large part in guiding Most company designs, including our latest-Shane candy bars. The combination of Kevin’s laser focus on production prowess with both Laurel and Pavia’s curatorial approach to visual confections has elevated and expanded the product line in recent years.

In some ways, it feels like this is just the beginning for Shane’s. What can we look forward to in the future?

Prior to the pandemic, when we thought our chocolate café just needed more Market Street frontage, we purchased the first floor of 104 Market Street. 104 is remarkable in that it was constructed in the first half of the 18 th century! It’s likely the oldest space still extent on Market Street in Philadelphia, and believed to be on the site where Robert Aitken, Ben Franklin’s apprentice, first published Common Sense [by Thomas Paine] and The Bible in the US. 104 Market Street is also adjacent to the historical location of the famous London Coffee, with its dark and complex history of both slave auctions and being a stop on the Underground Railroad.

We have pivoted many times in the planning process for 104, but it is now under construction to be a functional dry space for storing, sorting and roasting and preparing the nibs for grinding and finishing back at Shane. The space will be showcasing our behind-the-scenes work in chocolate. It’ll be a literal window into the bean-to-bar process! We plan to install a 100-year-old caramel slag glass ceiling, salvaged from a shuttered candy shop, expose the 18th century brick walls, lay down a rough white oak floor, and install modern roasting equipment, and artisan scale winnowing and destoning equipment.

We are excited for new opportunities that await us in our next chapters ahead as we grow the amount of chocolate we can create, sell, and share.

Eric Berley's Sweet Story of Shane Confectionery