East Cobb Biz Scene: The Queen’s Pantry braces for tariffs

It was great reluctance that Samantha Garmon announced to her customers earlier this month that she was having to raise the price of chocolate products.

The owner of The Queen’s Pantry—a British specialty food and gift store that’s been in East Cobb for 13 years—announced that the price of cocoa had skyrocketed more than 60 percent over the last year.

Chocolate candies and other sweets abound in the 2,000-square-foot space at the Shoppes of Merchants Walk, which Garmon moved into two years ago after occupying a smaller retail storefront a few doors away for 11 years.

Her expansion ambitions were seemingly throttled, but she attached some classic wry British humor to the situation when she wrote that while another price increase is coming, she’s been able to order in larger numbers to offset some of that:

“And so we are offering you the chance to buy whole boxes of chocolate. Not like a Forrest Gump box of chocolates, but a whole box of your favourite bar of chocolate.”

As it turned out, that headache was just compounding, in an unrelated way. The day before, President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs, in what he called “Liberation Day.”

For Garmon, a native of middle England whose store inventory is almost entirely imported, that was not a description that she would use.

About 85 percent of her revenues are from food, and 40 percent of that is chocolate, said Garmon, who also sells British-style fresh meats that must be produced in the U.S. according to federal law, as well as gift and novelty items.

Great Britain received the base 10 percent tariffs that most trading nations received from the Trump administration.

Garmon’s products also come from Ireland (25 percent announced tariffs) and South Africa (36 percent). Those numbers could be negotiated, but the uncertainty is her greatest concern.

“If it [stays] at 10 percent, I could order it today,” she said of a standard 90-day window between placing an order and receiving a delivery.

“But if they go up” before that window closes, “I have to pay the difference.”

She said she’s working with her suppliers to hold the line at that 10 percent figure as much as possible, but the tariff drama has been fleeting.

Some nations have begun negotiating with the U.S., and Trump has dropped some of the more severe tariffs on Chinese goods.

Garmon opened The Queen’s Pantry in 2012, on the heels of the recession, then weathered COVID.

With COVID, “you woke up every day some set of directions,” Garmon said. “The difference with this is we don’t know what’s going to happen day by day.”

The Queen’s Pantry has a sizable ex-pat customer base that Garmon has cultivated into something of a British family away from home.

Her larger space provides a separate room for her British tea events, and many customers filed in for a cup of tea in the wake of the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

“People come in for a bit of an experience,” Garmon said, saying some of her customers come from nearby states in the Southeast, as well as across metro Atlanta.

“They come in and they know what they’re getting.”

But Garmon also understands the implications for her business if prices keep rising, regardless of the reason.

“When the purse strings get tight, it’s the luxury items that get cut.”

She said she’ll be preparing a list of items for customers that may be affected by the tariffs, “because we don’t want to give them sticker shock.”

Garmon said some of her customers appreciated being humored with the way she announced the higher chocolate process, “but that’s the British way.”

Garmon, who has dual British-American citizenship and who lives nearby with her husband, a long-time East Cobb resident, didn’t delve into the politics of the tariffs, just what she thinks their impact may be on what she does.

“No matter who’s running the government, they’re not looking after small businesses,” she said.

She did point out that the task of determining the national origin of a product isn’t as simple as those pining for a “Made in America” designation may think.

Some products can have ingredients that come from other countries, but if they’re ultimately processed, assembled and packed in the U.S., they’re considered American.

“When I import it, I have to declare where it was manufactured,” she said. Also, “if it’s a certain percent that’s made here, they can say it’s made in America.”

Still, Garmon said she feels blessed to be able to do what she does.

“What you do for other people is the most satisfying thing I do,” she said. “We’ll keep helping our customers.”

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