While a graduate student at Washington University in the summer of 2019, Cam Loyet had to give a 10-minute presentation on a topic of his choice. Two hobbies of his came to mind: Golf and chocolate.
Loyet opted to talk about the latter, specifically choosing to discuss the chocolate company he co-founded with his wife, Haley Loyet, in 2016 while they were undgrads at Illinois Wesleyan University. The company — Honeymoon Chocolates — at the time had fallen by the wayside as Loyet pursued a career in accounting.
But during that presentation, he whipped up a batch of chocolate for his audience. He hasn't stopped yet.
“That (presentation) was the beginning of pushing Honeymoon again,” Loyet said.
Since then, Honeymoon Chocolates has grown to sell its products in nearly 100 retail stores nationwide. Earlier this month, it opened a new factory and retail store in Clayton as part of an effort at both expanding its nationwide footprint and elevating its brand locally.
Honeymoon began in a college dorm room with the goal of making a healthier version of chocolate. The company, which won a 2021 Arch Grant, manufactures and sells “bean to bar” chocolate that includes no refined sugar and is sweetened using only raw honey. Honeymoon provides part of its proceeds to honeybee research and says it sources its honey from beekeepers.
Inside look at the new Honeymoon Chocolates factory
Scroll through the gallery above to take a look inside Honeymoon's chocolate making process
While at Illinois Wesleyan, the Loyets used the shared kitchen of Cam’s four-person dorm suite to make the chocolates. Cam Loyet stored his chocolate-making equipment and ingredients in a 5 by 8-foot closet in his dorm room.
"We had our first, full 50 kilogram bag of cocoa shipped to that dorm and I hauled it up three flights of stairs and stored it inside of that tiny closet,” Cam Loyet said. “My roommates at the time thought I was crazy. They got free chocolate, but they didn’t really know what was going on. Thankfully, they were OK with it. They never said ‘hey we need you to be quiet.’ I just tried to be as respectful as I could with the fact that I was manufacturing a product out of a dorm room.”
Honeymoon has since expanded from those humble origins. Today, it sells its chocolate wholesale and directly to consumers. Its chocolate bars, which are 2.2-ounces in size and made in a variety of flavors, can be found at brick-and-mortar retailers and online websites. Honeymoon retails its bar for $10 on its website. In St. Louis, its products are sold at its newly opened location as well several other retail stores, including select Schnuck Markets locations.
Honeymoon officially opened its 5,000-square-foot factory and retail store, located 16 N. Central Ave., in January. The new facility is meant to aid its effort to expand its footprint and provide adequate space for production. It previously operated out of a 500-square-foot space in Maplewood.
Loyet said the new Clayton facility provides customers with an immersive experience, featuring a glassed-in kitchen that allows visitors to catch a glimpse of Honeymoon’s chocolate making process. Part of the strategy behind the new facility is to deepen Honeymoon’s connection with St. Louis, Loyet said.
“We were in all these stores, close to 100 stories, but we just weren’t well-known in our hometown," he said. "We wanted to push the brand itself inside of St. Louis."
Loyet said he and wife initially financed their company using credit cards, personal savings and small business loans. In June 2021, it closed on $300,000 in funding from undisclosed investors.
“That was the first realization we could grow this above and beyond St. Louis,” Loyet said.
As it seeks to widen its nationwide footprint, Loyet said Honeymoon is taking a city-by-city approach to its strategy. It is currently targeting expansion in Kansas City, where it sells products at Whole Foods Market locations there. Honeymoon also wants to expand its product roster, with plans to roll out miniature-size bars. It expects the smaller-size bars to be critical to its expansion plans, with Loyet saying he hopes to sell them in a major nationwide retailer like Target or Whole Foods.
Honeymoon’s staff at its new facility includes three chocolate makers, a fulfillment manager and front of house manager. While Haley Loyet remains active in the company as a co-founder, she has pursued a full-time career as a physician and is currently completing a residency in pediatrics.
