Sweet Lollapalooza Confections The Shops at Commerce Place

Even though his passion for food is lifelong, Sweet Lollapalooza Confections owner, Brett Roy, used to have a very different lifestyle from the one he has now. In Toronto, he was a chef working in a high-pressure environment, whipping up gourmet meals for corporate jet-setters. But it didn’t take long before the call of chocolate became irresistible, and Brett decided that he was ready for a career change. So he pulled up stakes and headed West.

“I decided to train as a chocolatier and went to France a few times,” he says. After doing some research through farmer's markets, Brett found that the public was eager for the kind of chocolate business he wanted to run. “We had really good feedback, so that narrowed down where we would do it and the type of clientele we were going after.”

Since Brett wanted to use a rare type of cacao as the base for his chocolates, he knew that a specialized niche of customers would be the best fit. That led him to opening Sweet Lollapalooza Confections' storefront location in the financial centre of Edmonton in 2008.