Our Story…

how we became
“The Workshop for Trust”

Hi, I am Peter Crabtree of Crabtree Brands.

We are a food and beverage company on a mission to create a stronger community through our products. We began as a small chocolate-making operation in 2005, when I was 15 years old. I founded the company with my mother, Colleen, to raise money for college. As we built our business, we worked to ensure that we did the right thing, always choosing that over the profitable thing. After COVID derailed many of our plans, our restaurant and chocolate operations suffered as we struggled to find the right people to help us lead our teams.

In 2022, we were approached with the opportunity to buy L’Atelier TR (LTR), a chocolate company founded on Bainbridge Island. The founders had sold the company to the current owner earlier that year and stayed on as employees. We knew of the company and had met the founders over the years. We perceived that they had a high level of skill in chocolate production and a lot of relevant experience they could bring to our business. We felt this was the answer to the void we had in our leadership team.

We made an offer to purchase the company name, assets, inventory, etc., from the owner, pending a successful negotiation with the founders of LTR to have them join our team. We were successful in this endeavor, and we brought the founders onto our team in positions of leadership,

We had a wake-up call in mid-January of 2024. On a Friday night, we suddenly had an employee quit. She gave no real explanation other than, “there are some bad things happening in your company.” What we learned over the next couple of days was horrifying. We had multiple staff members come forward and share that they had been sexually harassed by people on our team who supervised their work. Upon learning these things and conducting a thorough internal investigation, we immediately terminated the team members in question and prohibited them from returning to the company. 

The employees who came forward to share what had happened to them were fearful of retaliation, and based on the evidence we received, they had good reason to be. Their supervisors had told them not to tell anyone and that they would be bad people if they did. It took courage to ignore that and come to us anyhow. The individuals that came forward knew that they could trust us. We encouraged them to report what had happened to the police, as sexual harassment in the workplace is a crime.

After a little while, one of our staff members bravely decided to proceed with reporting the issue to the Poulsbo Police. The police detective met with them to get some additional information and passed it on to the Prosecutor’s office, who is still evaluating the case. 

I’ve left out the names and many of the details because they are not what matters. This story is not about the people who caused pain and suffering to many of our employees. It’s about where we go from here and how we use what happened here to do better.

Looking back, there were some red flags we should have seen, but there were always explanations and excuses for things that didn’t add up. We had never really thought much about sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace. It seemed like those were things that happened other places, but certainly not here, and not on our team. 

I tell you this story because I was shocked that this happened in the first place that people we trusted to lead our teams could show such a lack of respect for others. I am shocked that when people do speak up, there is so little that exists to support them, and I am shocked that there are no consequences for the people that continue to harass, attack, and demean others, especially when they do that from a place of power. 

It turns out our story is not unique. This kind of behavior is rampant, especially in the hospitality industry. Unless we start to talk about it, educate people about it, and work as a community to stop it, it will continue. We have to do better. We decided that we needed to take this brand and turn it into a force for changing this culture. 

We began working with our team on a fresh start for this brand, L’Atelier TR. L’Atelier means “the workshop” in French. TR originally stood for the founders of the brand. After tossing around ideas, we concluded that TR will now stand for “TRust,” - something we feel is too often missing in our industry. An employee should be able to implicitly trust their employer and their leadership team to provide a safe work environment. We have always strived to do this. Trust is built on open, honest relationships. Trust is built upon respect. Trust and Respect are the two basic principles that enable people to thrive.

To this end, L’Atelier TR now means “The workshop for TRust,” and we are dedicating the brand to starting conversations about acceptable workplace behavior and prevention of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the hospitality sector. 

We have developed a partnership with Kitsap and Pierce counties’ accredited sexual assault center, Rebuilding Hope. We will be working tirelessly with them to change the narrative about sexual violence in the workplace. L’atelier TR will select a specific chocolate package each month, and 15% of gross sales from that package will go into a set-aside fund that we will use for the following immediate goals:

• Advertising Rebuilding Hope’s new presence in Kitsap County and the resources they bring to the table. 

• Sharing the stories from our industry to destigmatize victims of sexual violence and spark conversations about how we can do better at prevention as a community

• Directly helping to fund Rebuilding Hope’s outreach and expand their donor network in Kitsap County

• Growing sales of the chocolates that directly fund this program.

  These first four items will help lay the foundation for the larger goal we have, which is to fund a full-time Prevention Advocate for Kitsap County, which is not currently in Rebuilding Hope’s Budget

We will share our progress on our website regularly, and Rebuilding Hope will oversee our fund and spending on advertising to ensure it meets our shared goals for outreach and education. To learn more about Rebuilding Hope’s programs and services for victim-survivors of sexual assault, check out their website at www.RebuildingHope.org.