Level: Novice
Read Time: 11 minutes.
We are starting a new bean to bar factory in the industry so I would like to know what is the best cocoa nibs there is to order for making chocolate? And what equipment do we need? Can you supply me with a recipe for making the best chocolate?
Oh my. I’m going to try super hard here to be helpful without coming across snarky, unkind or unfeeling. And I keep thinking that this is a one off question yet I keep getting more and more of these types of questions as the bean to bar movement catches on and people realize they don’t want to miss this proverbial boat. So here we go.
The main issue here is that there are many incorrect assumptions in the questions themselves and that screams at me that the person posing the question really should not be going into business at all as their assumptions are based on the basic fact that they have not done the proper research to open a business and are asking all the wrong questions....and don't even know it.
Now mind you, I am here to answer questions….but not sub-novice level questions to those that should be asking Alchemist level questions. Yet here I am doing it since clearly it needs to be addressed. So what is wrong with these questions? Let’s break it down.
If you are starting a chocolate making business, you should already be making chocolate (in my opinion – these are clearly all my opinions so I won’t qualify that any more). You should ADORE what you are making and giddy to share what you love with others. Asking for the best cocoa yells at me that you have never made chocolate nor done really any research as with just a modicum of experience or reading you should have learned there is no best cocoa nib.
And let’s break the nib part down as there are….hold while I count up the issues…3 major problems there.
If you are opening a factory you should be using whole and raw cocoa beans to start with or you will never be profitable nor sustainable.
This is bean to bar…not nib to bar.
There is not and never will be a best cocoa bean just like there is not and never will be a best wine grape or best pie apple.
Going back now, it shows again that you probably have not ever made chocolate if you are asking about equipment. Let’s ignore the fact that I have listed the equipment needed to make chocolate all over the site, but it is further an impossible question to answer as I don’t know how big the factory is going to be and while that may not affect the equipment you need a lot, it certainly can change it. It shows the horse is being put before the cart. No one reasonably decides to start a business without some ilk of business plan and you can’t develop a business plan without basic estimates of your startup and operating expenses. Now, if the question had been presented with those specifics (Hi, I’m looking to start a chocolate business making 500 lb a week, can you help me with the correct size winnower, roaster and refiner?) then I could help with that and would gladly do so as I consult like that all the time. Or maybe you wanted to know the advantages of multiple melangers vs a ball mill and conch. That would be cool, but not 'what equipment do I need'.
And finally, the recipe. Can you see where this is going? Sure, there are a few businesses out there that have trade secret recipes that are heavily guarded as they are what make the brand (Pepsi, Coke, etc) but I honestly can’t think of a single craft/artisan/small batch company where the recipe is that critical. It is all about what I mentioned above – you need to make something YOU adore and all our tastes are different. I can give you a recipe but without the experience of making chocolate and tweaking the results to your tastes, it is basically useless. I once set up a beer brewing experiment with my local home brew club. We gave everyone a recipe, including all the specifics of exact ingredients and the brewing instructions needed, leaving really nothing to chance. The results were pretty amazing in that what we end up with were 12 beers that, while all stouts, all tasted pretty radically different, some good, some bad. Why? Technique, equipment, implementation, experience were all different among all the makers and it clearly showed just how important that is as opposed to some recipe. The same goes with bread, wine, etc. It is about the maker, not the recipe. And I keep referring to the recipe. This too is a bad sign. No business can survive off one product. Each different bean is going to roast a little different, and will most likely shine with a slightly different recipe. And more so, might change as the years go on and crops change. I come back to wine makers time and again and how they make wine. They are grape whisperers. They taste, evaluate, modify and make each batch the best it can be based on the conditions at the moment. To be a good and flexible chocolate maker you need to be a bean whisperer and be open to modifying the recipe and your procedure a little so the final products come out like you want. Further, businesses need diversification if they are going to succeed and remain alluring to those fickle customers.
So what does it take to start a chocolate making business if not those questions above? The first thing, and this would apply to any business really, is to determine a few things. One of the most important things is why do you want to start this business. There probably aren’t fully right or wrong answers here but the act of thinking it through should help you clarify in your mind the direction you take. Businesses like this tend to require passion and you don’t tend to get into something like this just to make money. Sure, you want to make a living by it, but you are both going to have to put in a lot of sweat equity and you better love what you are doing or you are just going to give up. It is ok of course if you are doing this just for the money. Lots of people do jobs just for that, but as I said before, rarely do people get into crafting businesses just for the money. I’ve known of a couple people that did it but they also had a LONG history of jumping into new businesses because they had a head for business and didn’t actually make chocolate themselves. They ran the business and hired others to do the actually making. That though is the exception and not what we are talking about here. We are talking about getting into a business because you love it.
And how is the best way to see if you love it? You need to dive in and get making and to do that you are going to want to get in there and read damn near everything you can on the subject. When you do that, you will quickly discover the equipment you need, that recipes make little difference and that everyone’s tastes are different. At that point it is time to look into what you can bring to the market. i.e. what is going to make you and your products stand apart from the competition? Producing the ‘best chocolate’ is usually a fool’s errand but also a really common goal. Of course you should be making the best chocolate you can, but the thing to realize here, that I’ve said over and over, is there is no ‘best chocolate’ – there is only chocolate that excites you and that others of your like taste will excite too. This is why asking me for the best nib for making the best chocolate just can’t work.
Likewise, if you goal is to make low priced chocolate to lure customers in keep in mind that cheap bulk industrial chocolate factories pretty much have that market cornered and the numbers are just not there for true craft chocolate to be inexpensive. If you try you will just find you are not sustainable because you are not paying yourself enough. For a hobby that is fine but not for a business.
At this point it would be easy to roll into what it takes to start up your business….but really that was not the point of ths post. It was mostly about the direction you go BEFORE you decide if you want to start a business. In short, educate yourself to the basics, decide why you are wanting to open a business, work out at least business plan to make sure your thoughts and goals are viable, and get in there and start making chocolate. There is no substitution for getting your hands duty and learning what you are passionate about. Only then are you ready to reaching out about equipment types, prices, etc. Doing it before that you are only showing how little work you have put into the planning of your business.
So get out there, read, make, learn, repeat and if you get truly stuck, then I’m here for you, but until then, go start accumulating some of that sweat equity.