Awakened from slumber

Business

When entrepreneur Benno Hübel heard on his car radio in 2013 that the insolvent Berlin-based chocolate manufacturer Sawade was up for sale, he immediately called his wife Melanie, a design and marketing expert. A few weeks later, the couple prevailed against 30 competitors in the bidding war and took over the company and its workforce. Then they brought Stan Hema on board to get the long-established brand back on track.

Sawade is Berlin’s oldest chocolate manufacturer. The first shop was opened in 1880 on the boulevard Unter den Linden and offered homemade confectionery, truffles and speciality chocolates. After reunification, Sawade ran into difficulties and the company, with around 40 employees, stood on the brink of closure in 2013.

When Stan Hema met with Melanie and Benno Hübel, they had just drawn up a business plan and had many questions. Can we repair the damaged brand? Do we use the old recipes or do we reinvent the chocolate? Does anyone still buy schnapps chocolates?

The path to follow soon became clear: cultivate Berlin and start out by remaining true to tradition and the established clientele. With the best quality. Many recipes had been around for an extremely long time. Because Sawade was once a purveyor to the royal court, even Kaiser Wilhelm II enjoyed the bourbon vanilla truffles, nut nougat and walnuts on brandy marzipan. Could there be a better brand story than that?

Regarding the cooperation with Stan Hema, Melanie Hübel says: ‘The most important area of expertise for us was strategy: the development of the basis, the values and the USP. I couldn’t have wished for a better partner for that.’ The design became important in the second step, she adds, because: ‘That was our big flourish.’ The idea often surprised them, and that was exactly what they wanted, she says. Her husband Benno adds: ‘That was my impression of Stan Hema in our work together: curious, helpful, friendly, committed and – very important – smart! Strategically sound.’

The cooperation paid off. The Süßer Stern (Sweet Star) 2018 industry award went to the Sawade flagship store at Hackesche Höfe, which was designed by Stan Hema in collaboration with bfs design. Sawade’s digital store, developed with the web agency Turbine Kreuzberg, also received a special prize as the best online shop shortly afterwards.