Marzipan & Nougat Bars Wholesale & Bulk

A marzipan bar isn’t really an impulse thing. Somebody picks one up because they want something properly European and a bit heftier than a regular chocolate bar, and they usually know what they’re after. Three countries and two brands make up this lineup. Germany marzipan nougat comes from Maitre Truffout, which also has a Belgian bar under the same name. Over on the Greek side, Jannis covers the brown marzipan nougat with its nougat bars. Nine SKUs in total. You’ll find honey-almond nougat at one end and dark-chocolate marzipan near the other, plus a cranberry-almond soft nougat we’d happily eat ourselves, in bars and multi-packs from 0.83 to 2.31 lb.

Start with the German Maitre Truffout bars, since they’re the chocolate-covered marzipan most people picture. The Maitre Truffout Marzipan Bar with Dark Chocolate at 175g is our flagship pick, a single thick marzipan log under dark chocolate, about as German as marzipan gets. It’s a big bar (175g) and at specialty food retail it tends to land in the $6 to $10 range. Smaller is the Maitre Truffout Marzipan-Nougat Milk Chocolate Bar at 75g. Marzipan and nougat are layered inside milk chocolate here. It’s a softer bite than straight marzipan, which we think makes it the easier sell to someone new to the stuff. There’s also the Maitre Truffout Marzipan-Nougat Milk Chocolate Bar 75g 10pc (same bar, ten in a pack). Handy for a retail multi-pack. Foodservice places like it too, handing single bars out in an amenity or gift program. The lone bar from Belgium is the Maitre Truffout Nougat and Hazelnut Filled Chocolate Bar. Nougat and hazelnut inside chocolate, and we honestly can’t decide if it’s a praline or a candy bar (shops that carry both get to file it wherever they like).

Jannis is a whole different texture. These Greek bars are soft and chewy, closer to a candy bar than to firm German marzipan. The Jannis Almond Soft Nougat Bar at 50g is the simplest of them, plain almond nougat done the Greek way. Fruit shows up in the Jannis Cranberry and Almond Soft Nougat Bar at 60g and the Jannis Strawberry and Almond Soft Nougat Bar at 60g (we’d lean strawberry if you only take one). The Jannis Caramel and Hazelnut Soft Nougat Bar at 60g goes more dessert with caramel and hazelnut together, and that’s the one for anybody who usually buys caramel bars. Then the Maitre Truffout Chocolate Alps Honey Nougat Almond Bar sits sort of halfway between the German and Greek camps. Honey and almond nougat in chocolate, with a bit of Alpine honey about it.

Gift baskets are a big outlet for these. The bars feel valuable in the hand and add real weight to a basket. And Germany and Belgium and Greece fit easily on a basket card. One easy build: a Maitre Truffout 175g Dark Chocolate Marzipan Bar plus two or three Jannis soft nougat bars, which comes out around $45 to $80 retail with nothing pricey added. The little Jannis bars are good filler (several fit in one basket).

Here’s the thing about marzipan at an import grocer or a deli with a European feel. It sells hardest in the weeks before Christmas when the German marzipan habit kicks in. It keeps going the rest of the year as a nicer single chocolate treat though, and the people buying it tend to come back for it specifically rather than stumbling onto it. So we’d put the Maitre Truffout marzipan bars right by your German imports or on the European chocolate wall, wherever those regulars already look. The Jannis soft nougat bars are a looser fit in a good way. The texture’s gentle and the fruit-and-nut flavors don’t need explaining, so they’ll sit fine in a general European candy section with no special spot. If you run a proper European candy program we’d carry both halves. Between them you go from firm and almondy to soft and fruity, at two price levels from three countries. Nothing says you can’t take one case first (they’re about 5 to 10 kg, with bars from 0.83 to 2.31 lb) and try a couple of SKUs before going wider, since there’s no minimum order. Approved wholesale accounts get account pricing. We ship within the US. Treat them like any chocolate-covered bar in storage. Cool and dry with the oldest out first. No big temperature swings either (that’s what puts bloom on the coating).

What we like most is how the two halves cover for each other over a year. Marzipan has its moment around Christmas and New Year since it’s so tied up with German holiday sweets, and the Maitre Truffout 175g dark chocolate marzipan bar is just the sort of thing a European deli moves from late November into January without really trying. Jannis is a different animal. It’s a soft chewy bar that everyday candy buyers pick up (not only the gift crowd), so it keeps selling through spring and summer as well. With both on the shelf you get a holiday bump from the marzipan while the nougat quietly pays the rent the rest of the year. In a gift basket the marzipan bar is the star and the nougat bars play support, and it’s one supplier for all of it. We’d point you at the caramel-hazelnut and strawberry-almond Jannis bars for fill in particular. They sit happily in a chocolate basket or a nut basket, so you’re not hunting for another product to round it out.

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