Ingersoll Avenue chocolate palace feeling weight of tariffs on its imported Easter treats

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The sign in front of Chocolaterie Stam's Ingersoll Avenue store reads "Fine European Chocolates Since 1913: Amsterdam — Des Moines."

Since 1997, Ton Stam, a native of the Netherlands, and his U.S.-born husband, David, have been importing and selling the chocolate made by Stam's family, serving as the American branch of the business. They now have four local stores and seven franchise locations from Illinois to Colorado.

It's been a steady and lucrative trade, with top-grade chocolate arriving in regular shipments. Then it's turned into finished confections at the Stam production facility on Bell Avenue in Des Moines and delivered to the stores.

With Easter coming April 20, the Stams, who employ 120 people, are producing seasonal treats including milk-chocolate Easter bunnies, hand-painted with various other hues of chocolate. Posters in windows and on the store's walls quip "Stam has a bunny disposition."

The outlook for the business, however, is more cloudy than sunny after President Donald Trump on April 2 announced tariffs totaling 30% on imports from the European Union and 125% on the Chinese-made custom packaging the company uses.

As the reaction that roiled the stock exchanges spread to the all-important U.S. bond market, which finances U.S. debt, Trump on April 9 froze for 90 days a 20% "reciprocal" tariff on EU goods, and most others around the world, but left in place a baseline 10% levy. The China tariff, however, stayed in place and now has increased to 145%.

The Stams said the tariffs won't kill their company but could shrink it. If they stick, it will be forced to raise prices for chocolate and coffee — prices already increased because of scarcity caused by years of droughts in the countries that produce those crops.

Consumers also are spooked by the turmoil, which raised the specter of a recession and are spending less during the critical Easter season, they said.

"People are going to see their pocket hit not only by our price increases, but the price increases at the grocery store, the price increases in their cars, the price increases in everything else," Ton Stam said. "At some point people may have to make a choice about what they will spend their money on or not."

Stam never imagined he could feel so torn between his adopted home and his original one.

"I never thought that America would have an adversarial relationship with Europe," he said. "That's just bizarre."

No other chocolates will work

Stam’s grandfather Jacobus Stam founded Chocolaterie Stam in the Netherlands just before World War I. Ton Stam grew up above his father Frits’ chocolate shop.

He came to the U.S. as a financial planner, eventually settled with his husband in Des Moines and realized they could use his special connection to offer one-of-a-kind, fresh-made gourmet chocolates In Iowa, later adding European-style coffee and gelato.

Belgium, the Netherlands neighbor that is the source of Stam chocolate, is known for its world-famous Godiva and Leonidas chocolate brands. It contains twice the cocoa powder required in U.S. chocolate.

Trump and members of his administration have said tariffs will motivate companies to make goods in America. But cacoa, the raw material of chocolate, is a crop of the tropics.

The only U.S. state within that latitude — just barely — is Hawaii, and according to the Hawaiian Cacao Project, Hawaii's farmers produced only about 44 tons in 2023. Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world leaders, produced almost 3 million tons last year.

Ton Stam has looked into making his family’s chocolate in the U.S. from raw cacoa, but said it wouldn’t make sense financially. Even his cousin who runs the European operation has the basic processing done elsewhere before turning the resulting cocoa into finished products.

"The capital investment, to make the quality of chocolate that we want, into equipment is insurmountable for somebody our size," he said.

Being able to import the bulk chocolate from the family operation is key to profitability. David Stam said the products they sell can't be made with solely American ingredients.

"There is no way for us to circumvent that problem because it's going to either come from outside Europe and then sold by a third party to us, or we're going to buy it direct where we've always bought it," he said.

Tariffs increase prices while chocolate prices surge due to droughts

The Stams already have faced steep price increases. With the droughts in the tropics, the global price of cocoa almost quintupled to $10,710 per metric ton from September 2022 to January 2025.

They've been able to cope because bonbons, their most popular product, combine chocolate with other ingredients. "There's fillings in there. There's raspberry, butter and cream, and those have not gone through the roof," Ton Stam said. "So that has helped alleviate some of it. But we've had to increase our prices. We don't have a choice."

This year the Stams' revenues are the same as they were at this time last year, but the quantity of products they've sold has decreased, meaning consumers have less purchasing power, they said.

In late April the Stams will receive their next order of European chocolates. Ton Stam said that even with the pause in Trump's reciprocal tariff, they will pay $20,000 extra because of the 10% tariff on all imported goods.

"Because we have raised prices because of coco, we're going to absorb it for now," he said.

To buttress chocolate revenues, the Stams over the years have expanded into coffee and gelato sales. But coffee prices also have spiked due to the droughts. And like the gelato ingredients imported from Italy, coffee is subject to the baseline tariff.

"It's kind of a roller coaster," Ton Stam said.

"We can't plan," David Stam said.

Other import-dependent Iowa businesses also are facing big cost increases. Among them is Eco Lips, a Cedar Rapids company that makes organic health and beauty products with ingredients sourced from more than 50 countries. The brand supplies 40,000 stores nationwide and has annual sales of $30 million.

After Trump announced the 90-day pause, Eco Lips CEO Steve Shriver sent a letter to 300 clients letting them know that prices would rise and delivery timeframes would be extended. Shriver forecasts that his 12-month cost of goods could rise by $5 million atop his typical $10 million annual outlay for, among other things, ingredients that cannot be grown in the U.S., such as vanilla, coconut oil and cocoa.

"I don't trust it. It's a 90-day pause. It could change again in 10 days," Shriver said. "There are still 10% tariffs across the board, and that's a substantial addition to our prices."

Packaging costs will rise

Fancy chocolate demands fancy packaging. At the Ingersoll Stam store, some of the chocolate bunnies sit in clear plastic cylinders emblazoned with the Stam label. Those packages are made in the good, old USA: Brooklyn, New York. But 60% of Stam's packaging comes from China.

"Sometimes we can't get it anywhere else," David Stam said.

With the threat of tariffs looming earlier this year, the Stams filled a warehouse with packaging. It will get them to Christmas. But after that, their packaging may cost substantially more, they said.

At some point this summer they will place an order for more packaging, and Ton Stam is certain it won't be with an American company paying workers subsistence wages.

"We're going to pass it on to the consumer," he said. "What choice do we have?"

"By Christmas the pain is going to be felt," David Stam said.

Reuters contributed to this article.

Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184 or pjoens@registermedia.com.