Wholesale

Posted on by valeriebeck

Welcome to Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate brokering, consulting, and wholesale distribution!

New —

Here are the links to the CocoaTown webinar I was honored to hold on How to Work with a Distributor:  Webinar and About Valerie Beck [videos]

Details:

How to Work with a Distributor — webinar as part of the CocoaTown series:

Join Valerie Beck, Founder of Chocolate Uplift, called the Chocolate Auntie, as she takes us through the ins and outs of finding the right distributor and building a relationship that works for you and your business. She will guide us through the processes step by step.

Date: Saturday, September 11, 2021
Time: 10:00 am – 12 Noon Atlanta time (-4 GMT)
Topic: Working With a Distributor
Presenter: Valerie Beck, Founder of Chocolate Uplift, called the Chocolate Auntie 

Link to register – https://forms.gle/LYUvdDoax6wf1CcH8

Update — here are the slides from my webinar! I placed a great deal of information into the notes sections, so be sure to click Show Speaker Notes under View if you want to see everything!

Here I am, Valerie Beck, “the chocolate Auntie,” dancing at home in Chicago with craft chocolate bars I featured in my birthday box and at my virtual birthday party last year!

Chocolate brands that I broker (drop-shipping directly from the chocolate maker) or distribute (I stock and ship) or consult to (getting them ready for distribution, upgrading packaging and labeling, or other services) — for some brands it’s all of these — are generally the brands I also feature in the virtual or in-person chocolate tastings I hold, and for other special events including IG Lives or other videos, as well as in special blog posts. And they’re the brands I feature on my Instagram, along with the retailers who carry them!

All photos there, and here, are by me!

Please contact me at valerie@chocolateuplift.com with any questions or for the latest prices, and scroll down for more details, photos, testimonials, and ideas. Thank you!

It’s all about uplift!

As a chocolate distributor and broker and all-around chocolate collaborator, I help bean-to-bar chocolate brands get onto shelves. Before that, if needed, I help them get ready to get onto shelves.

I sell wholesale, and arrange for upscale retailers, coffee shops, and chefs to purchase wholesale and to carry top ethical craft chocolate brands made in the US or elsewhere.

Here are my bios, in case you’d like to know about my background, Harvard education, past career as a lawyer, and how I came to be a chocolate services professional such as by founding Chicago Chocolate Tours [video montage!] and more over 15 years ago! I have loved and studied chocolate all my life.

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If you are a craft chocolate maker, depending on your goals,

  • I can help you get your chocolate into the right shops and boutiques or onto the right websites for online sales.
  • I can also help you get ready for distribution or for access to stores that match your ethos, with my consulting services such as
    • writing and proofreading,
    • brand strategy,
    • US import assistance, or
    • package redesign.
  • It’s important that you know where your chocolate goes, and that we have a fit on all sides. My work is not transaction-based but relationship-focused.
  • This relationship approach is why some makers call me “the chocolate Auntie” : ) and I feel very honored that they do!

Testimonial:

“We love working with Valerie and Chocolate Uplift as distributor and representative of everything OBOLO in the market.    We have shared people-centered values focusing on highest quality chocolate, fairness and sustainability.  Valerie goes the extra mile to make sure our chocolate is in the best retail locations and well represented.”

Testimonial:

“Valerie’s advisory has been of tremendous value for us! Her work ethics, moral values and broad knowledge + expertise on many and diverse aspects ranging from specialty cacao and fine-chocolate, to marketing and content creations, as well as her great understanding of the bureaucracy and regulations to import chocolates to the USA, and not least her awesome distribution network, makes her a great candidate for anyone seeking help from a consultant on these matters! We feel very fortunate to count with her as an active special advisor on our team!” 

Testimonial:

“Valerie is an exceptional human being that has taken the endeavor of promoting the chocolate craft movement based on her 5 S principles, Slavery free, Soy free, Sustainable, Small batch and Scrumptious!   Her vast experience in the field of bean-to-bar movement and her personal charm has helped many small batch producers from small countries, like myself (El Salvador), improve and reach global quality.” 

If you are a retailer, whether brick-and-mortar, online, or both,

  • I’ll create and maintain your chocolate program, or
  • provide multiple brands or just a brand or two if that’s what you need, 
  • for your specialty market, cafe, wine shop, coffee shop, or other retail concept, or your hotel or other hospitality venture.
  • You’ll have products by top chocolate makers, that align with your brand, and that your customers or guests will feel uplifted to discover!
  • New: if you’re in Chicago or the area, you can pick up certain orders from me through free “curbside pickup” and receive additional free samples as a thanks for coming by, plus any of my Golden Age cookies I may have baked that day : ) Contact me at valerie@chocolateuplift.com to arrange.

Testimonial:

“Valerie provides everything that I could ask for from a broker/distributor. Her customer service is exceptional and I greatly appreciate her alerts to new brands and products that she knows I may like based on my quality standards and items that sell well with my customers, plus she wholeheartedly understands and respects my quality standards. Her response time to questions is quick and her responses are very thorough. I always gain insightful information when talking with Valerie and working with her is a pleasure.“

Testimonial:

“Valerie is amazing for her dedication to discovering world class chocolate from all over the world while maintaining the highest ethical standards for economic empowerment, sustainability, and health.“

Special packages or promotional opportunities include:

  • Displays for Holiday, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day (the “Big 3” times of year for artisan chocolate!) —
Valentine’s Day chocolate love!

  • Chocolate from specific places, or made from cacao from specific countries such as Ecuador, Mexico, or Peru, or regional displays like this Midwest Moments selection —
Midwest magic!
  • Woman chocolate maker displays —
Women in chocolate!
  • New product launches, or promotions to support places like Haiti or a specific cause —
New product launch by woman-owned Askanya of Haiti

  • Retailer and brand promotions —
Gotham Chocolates at SPACE519

  • Seasonal or color-themed displays —
Orange zing!
Purple power!
Yellow burst!
Greenery!

Autumn celebration
Giftable tins for Holiday and beyond

Don’t forget: hot chocolate is a huge seller in winter!

  • Recipe ideas —
Chocolate chip pecan fruit pie, with craft chocolate, of course!

The brands I work with meet my 5 Ss of first-class craft chocolate:

  • slavery-free
  • soy-free
  • sustainable
  • small-batch
  • scrumptious!
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I represent award-winning or otherwise high-reputation small-batch brands including those pictured here and more, at the same price to you as buying direct, but with my troubleshooting, recommendations, streamlined ordering of multiple brands, new product introductions, and social media support to provide exposure and drive demand. 

Contact me for more information or the full Chocolate Uplift portfolio and price lists.

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If I don’t love the quality, sustainability, or ingredients of a brand, I don’t represent it or recommend it. I share with you only what I love and trust in terms of flavor and source, so that you and your customers can love and trust it too.

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​Backstory if you’re curious: my distribution and brokering started very organically. Running the original chocolate tours in cities across the US [video!], I started getting asked by chocolate shop and cafe owners on my tour routes to let them know of any interesting chocolate brands I came across that might be a good fit for their stores.

I also started meeting more and more chocolate makers who had an excellent product and needed introductions to top retailers, plus wholesaling, consulting, storage, and delivery.

By connecting retailers and makers, and driving demand with social media and email marketing, Chocolate Uplift brokering and wholesale distribution contains elements of consulting, to make sure the right bars are on the right shelves, to delight your customers, meet your goals, and enhance your brand, always with mutual respect and a win-win attitude.

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I look forward to discussing what I can do for you!

A peek at some of my shelves!
I’m a lifelong true chocolate lover, and even decorate with chocolate wrapper art that I frame myself! : )
With a freshly opened cocoa pod on a small family cacao farm in Ecuador

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At home in Chicago, sweet Jorji the Cat is our sometime recycling coordinator and cacao pod investigator!
Can you spot the Dick Taylor Chocolate print behind Jorji?
A favorite breakfast of mine: fruit, cacao nibs, chocolate!

You can contact me any time at valerie@chocolateuplift.com with thoughts or questions. I’d love to hear from you!

Your friend — or Auntie! — in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck

Founder/CEO Chocolate Uplift

valerie@chocolateuplift.com

Instagram @chocolateuplift

Cacao Harvest with OBOLO Chocolate

Posted on by valeriebeck
In the rainforest: OBOLO Chocolate visits a Pangoa, Peru, cacao harvest

Hello!

Isn’t it nice to find authenticity? Authentic chocolate, made from authentic cacao, traded authentically, nourishing people and planet.

OBOLO Chocolate founder Mark Gerrits is originally from Milwaukee and is a long-time resident of South America, where he has focused on environmentalism and most recently cacao and chocolate. He and his family live in Santiago, Chile, and he visited the Pangoa cacao collective in Peru this summer, which is where he buys the cacao from which he and his team make their award-winning chocolate in Chile. Exciting news: Mark is now the godfather of a new baby born to Pangoa growers!

As a US importer and distributor of awesome OBOLO Chocolate, I video chatted with dear Mark today, and told him how much I enjoyed the photos and videos he posted from his recent trip. He told me he is the first visitor to the Pangoa collective since the current global situation began, and that he believes not only in maintaining and strengthening relationships but also in showing the world that he means what he says: his partnership with Pangoa is authentic; his cacao is truly traceable, and ethical, as it is grown with no child labor and it is organic.

As you may know, all of the brands I work with meet my 5 Ss of first-class bean-to-bar chocolate:

  • slavery-free
  • soy-free
  • sustainable
  • small-batch
  • scrumptious!

Mark gave me permission to re-post his Pangoa photos, and you can see more on OBOLO’s Instagram.

You can purchase selections of OBOLO bars at

Tell them Valerie sent you!

OBOLO Chocolate on the shelves at Cocoa & Co. in Chicago

You can also see more about OBOLO in my posts here (including video) and here. And, at the bottom of this post I’m sharing OBOLO-focused photos I took at the Craft Chocolate Experience in San Francisco in March 2020, where I got to spend time with Mark — and so many other chocolate makers and chocolate lovers, plus photos from my own little distribution center and staging area here in sweet home Chicago!

Enjoy this photo-journey to a cacao harvest in Peru, where you’ll see the opening of a cacao pod, and fermenting, drying, and sorting the cacao, and Pangoa families!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

With Mark and team member Brayan at the Craft Chocolate Experience, San Francisco, March 2020

Valerie Beck

Founder, Chocolate Uplift — Craft Chocolate Services

Wholesale, Retail, Consulting, Speaking

valerie@chocolateuplift.com

Instagram: @chocolateuplift

OBOLO tote bags possibly coming soon to the online retail boutique! I get so many compliments on mine! : )

Online Boutique

Posted on by valeriebeck


VAICACAO 100% Ceremonial Cacao Drinking Chocolate, available in my new online boutique!

Welcome!

Here is where you’ll find specific craft chocolate items that you’ll find nowhere else in Chicago, or nowhere else in the US!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChocolateUplift

I’ve curated an elite selection of products from my larger catalogue of brands that I import or distribute.

Why? Because customers from the chocolate tours days ask when I’m going to open a chocolate shop, which is so kind.

Because chocolate makers and wholesale buyers and I sometimes find that there are items that aren’t conducive to wholesale sales.

Through my online boutique, I can return to retail sales, with no conflict of interest with my wholesale sales. And, I can offer you exclusive items that I hope you will love as much as I do.

Everything in the boutique of course meets my 5 Ss of first-class chocolate:

  • slavery-free
  • soy-free (and industrial additive-free)
  • sustainable (and soil-regenerative)
  • small-batch and
  • scrumptious!
Chocolate Almond Spread from Belú Cacao, which I import into the US from El Salvador, made with no oils and no dairy, just almonds, cacao, and artisanal panela sugar!
This set of 2 elegant 9th & Larkin Chocolate bars is made from 2 different Vietnam cacaos, for 2 different flavor experiences.

Thank you and enjoy!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck

Founder, Chocolate Uplift

Distribution, Online Boutique, Virtual Tastings

valerie@chocolateuplift.com

@chocolateuplift on Instagram

Repost NYTimes article: Everything You Don’t Know About Chocolate

Posted on by valeriebeck

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Three beloved bean-to-bar brands I shared at my talk at the Northwest Chocolate Festival were highlighted in the New York Times this month: Dandelion Chocolate, Dick Taylor Chocolate, and Fruition Chocolate.

It’s all about love, and I love this recent New York Times article:

Everything You Don’t Know About Chocolate

The beloved bar has come a long way in quality and complexity. Here’s a primer on how it’s made, and how to choose the best and most ethically produced. 

By Melissa Clark

 

A snippet:

…bean-to-bar chocolate makers obsess over the character and ethical origins of their beans.

This is in marked contrast to mainstream industrial chocolate, in which the beans are a commodity product, bought in bulk for price, not quality.

…

The best bean-to-bar chocolate makers (also called craft or micro chocolate makers) choose beans the way chefs choose tomatoes — obsessively, often visiting the farms where the beans are grown. They roast and grind the beans themselves before making them into chocolate bars.

The pastry chef and author David Lebovitz, who wrote “The Great Book of Chocolate,” compares bean-to-bar chocolate to natural wine. “It’s exciting and alive in a way that even really great regular chocolate isn’t,” he said. “It can surprise you.”

 

Journalist Melissa Clark also notes that her favorite craft chocolate bars include Dandelion Chocolate, Dick Taylor Chocolate, Fruition Chocolate, and Taza Chocolate, four of the brands I am honored to represent!

Here’s to brands that meet my 5 S’s:

  • slavery-free
  • soy-free and lecithin-free
  • sustainable
  • small-batch and
  • scrumptious!

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Beloved Taza Chocolate was also a favorite in the New York Times, and on a route of my Boston Chocolate Walking Tours back in the old chocolate tour days.

Onward and upward!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

with leah and paul at dandelion
With Leah Hammerman and Paul Primozich of Dandelion Chocolate

with dahlia and bryan
With Dahlia Rissman Graham and Bryan Graham of Fruition Chocolate

 

with dustin and adam
With Dustin Taylor and Adam Dick of Dick Taylor Chocolate

Valerie Beck

Craft Chocolate Brokering, Consulting, Distribution

http://www.chocolateuplift.com

chocolateuplift@gmail.com

Instagram @chocolateuplift

 

 

 

Chocolate is love: Valentine gift sets

Posted on by valeriebeck

Hello!

Chocolate is love: I’ve assembled a small number of retail Valentine’s Day craft chocolate gift sets, and I’d love to send one to you or your gift recipient if you wish! The chocolate in these sets is, as always,

  • sustainable
  • slaveryfree
  • soy-free and lecithin-free
  • smallbatch and
  • scrumptious!

The sets are $50 each at www.paypal.me/chocolateuplift.

Which bar would you taste first:

♡Hot Pink by Chocolatasm,

♡Love and Happiness by Xocolatl Chocolate,

♡Hacienda Azul by Dandelion Chocolate, or

♡Vanilla Raspberry by Dick Taylor Chocolate?

Happy Valentine’s season!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck

Founder and CEO Chocolate Uplift

Craft Chocolate Wholesale and Retail Distribution, Consulting, Talks, Tastings

www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com

Child labor in cacao: scale of efforts to solve problem nowhere near scale of problem

Posted on by valeriebeck

The Cocoa Barometer 2018 report is out, and it reminds us that 2.1 million children work on cacao farms in West Africa, so that shelves in the US and Europe and elsewhere can stay stocked with cheap chocolate.

The report also points out that

“not a single company or government is anywhere near the sector-wide objective to eliminate child labour. It is high time for efforts to be increased. In that light, it is important to stress that child labour is a symptom of deeper problems; without tackling systemic poverty and a lack of local infrastructures, child labour will not be eradicated.”

Click through this article for the report, or download the report here.

Solutions, on my Instagram:

Social justice Sunday / sustainability Sunday! Reports show 2.1 million children work on cacao farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, so shelves in the US and Europe and elsewhere can stay stocked with cheap chocolate from big brands.
🌟
The Cacao Barometer 2018 report has been released, and reminds us that the cause of child labor is poverty. The authors emphasize that “not a single company or government is anywhere near reaching the sector-wide objective of the elimination of child labour, and not even near their commitments of a 70% reduction of child labour by 2020.” You can see the report on my blog at http://www.chocolateuplift.com.
🌟
Do you agree we can vote with our $, €, voices, and ethics? Companies will act when we demand it. We are empowered:
We can tell Hershey/Nestle/Mars/Mondelez/Ferrero(Nutella)/Callebaut and other big brands – and the retailers who carry them – that we want farmers to be paid a living wage instead of 50 cents per day, and that we want the brands to use #slaveryfree cacao and let kids go to school.
🌟
As I highlight in my talks, we can also buy craft chocolate and can read labels to make sure we see:
1. the cacao country of origin, just as a bottle of wine tells you where the grapes are from; if a brand has no transparency on who grew the cacao, ask what they’re hiding,
2. a small-batch brand that cares about human rights and sustainability in cacao, which also leads to better flavor through better agricultural practices and fair payments, and
3. a soy-free brand / clean ingredients, as chemical additives often go with low-quality cacao from non-sustainable sources in industrial processing.
🌟 Empathy ends poverty.
That’s my #chocolatefreedomproject; join me!
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

You can also check out CREER Africa, a nonprofit children’s rescue center in Ivory Coast, which helps kids who escaped from cacao slavery or other trafficking and which I support by donating meals to the kids at the center, as a way to make a difference.

Onward and upward!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck

Founder, Chocolate Uplift

chocolateuplift@gmail.com

www.instagram.com/chocolateuplift

Food Revolution: Good Food Awards 2018

Posted on by valeriebeck

By Valerie Beck, Chocolate Broker, Distributor, Speaker, Muse

The Good Food Awards are the Oscars of US-made artisan food, recognizing sustainability, social impact, and deliciousness, and the 8th annual awards celebration last night in San Francisco was a celebration of good food indeed, including amazing craft chocolate and spectacular confections!

There were 199 winners in 15 categories, and I’m outrageously proud of and impressed by those craft chocolate makers and confectioners with whom I have the honor to work or represent, who were recognized onstage:

Chocolate

Creo Chocolate

Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate

Fruition Chocolate

Ritual Chocolate

Xocolatl Small Batch Chocolate


Confections

Batch PDX

Good King
Months prior to the awards, I encouraged clients and contacts to enter from around the country, including some who hadn’t entered before, such as Xocolatl, first time entrant and already a winner!

I was also thrilled to be invited help behind the scenes last September in San Francisco, coordinating the judging process at the blind tasting – I didn’t want to be a judge because I wouldn’t want anyone to imagine that I chose my clients and contacts to win, even if subconsciously – and it was inspiring to see so much enthusiasm and so much wonderful sustainable food!

Scroll for scenes, including of the fabulous afterparty at AirBnB headquarters where we were able to sample exquisiteness from winners in all categories, from cheese and bread, to fish and charcuterie, to beer and spirits, pickles and pantry, and of course chocolate and confections!  

Keep eating real food, and real chocolate!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com

My 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year, and the Power of Reinvention

Posted on by valeriebeck

by Valerie Beck, Chocolate Muse

“Your power to choose the direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.” —Stephen Covey

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New beginnings: reinvented Chocolate Naive, best of 2017!

Magic at hand: Chocolate Naive, reinvented inside and out, comes from the innovating and iconoclastic mind of Domantas Uzpalis, my Chocolate Uplift 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year!

Domantas uses custom technology, proprietary processes, creative concepts, and unique flavor profiles involving housemade inclusions, to create the exquisite taste, outrageously smooth and seamless texture, and mind-expanding experience of this one-of-a-kind brand, making it my best-in-show when he previewed his newly reimagined line at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in January 2017! Domantas combines a kind heart and a scientific mind, both enlivened with keen humor, and his chocolate blends simplicity and sophistication, reinvented with authentic precision.

Chocolate Naive is made in Vilnius, Lithuania, and perhaps like that historically fascinating and contemporary cutting-edge city just a 1.5 hour flight from Stockholm or a 2.5 hour flight from Paris, the chocolate is simple yet sophisticated, elegant while whimsical, worldly yet naive.

2017 Chocolate Uplift Chocolate Maker of the Year…
…Domantas Uzpalis, founder of Chocolate Naive!
#naivefever
#chocolateforbreakfast

For example, Chocolate Naive’s angelic Kefir chocolate bar, part of the brand’s Forager collection, is silky and delicious. I included it in my June Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes to rapturous welcome by subscribers, as it brings a refreshing yet gentle tang from Domantas’s housemade kefir, which he blends into his exquisite craft chocolate, in this case on Bolivia cacao. The kefir isn’t layered upon the chocolate, or sandwiched between chocolate, it’s *in* the chocolate, for a marvelously smooth journey. (If you’re wondering what is kefir, click to learn more!) The bar is a probiotic paradise, in a dance of double fermentation, as both kefir and chocolate are fermented foods!

As are all of the bars in my subscription boxes and at my speaking engagements, where Kefir has also been a huge hit, it’s also sustainable, child-slavery-free (yes, you read that correctly, and if you’ve been following, you know that raising awareness of and eradicating child slave labor in cacao and chocolate is a mission of mine through my #chocolatefreedomproject; click for a Fortune Magazine video and article on child slave labor in Big Chocolate), soy-free, small-batch, and scrumptious. And the Kefir bar seems particularly well suited for breakfast! Click for the unboxing video!

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Subtle intensity – or intense subtlety? – is created in the Spices bar from Chocolate Naive by Domantas Uzpalis, my Chocolate Uplift 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year.

Then in December 2017 I selected Chocolate Naive’s Spices chocolate bar, part of the Equator collection, with its bold and warm intensity, for my subscription boxes, and it too was a massive success.  It contains a special house blend of cinnamon, ancho pepper, and vanilla, adding winter warmth and sultry spice to the luscious chocolate into which it is seamlessly mixed, all with signature saturated flavor, again evoking simplicity and sophistication simultaneously. (There’s no December unboxing video yet; I’m looking for a new videographer for my unboxing videos — can you help??)

And then there’s the Tahini bar with housemade tahini, the Porcini bar with locally foraged mushrooms, the Peanut Butter bar with housemade peanut butter – you get the idea! And the idea is big.

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Watch for this luscious yet controlled bar in my January Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes!

Chocolate Naive was founded in 2010, and reinvented inside and out for the recent relaunch. New Naive presents exquisite chocolate bars made from new recipes, eliminating soy lecithin, and based on just cacao and sugar — all you need! Click to see why I don’t want soy lecithin in my chocolate; short answer: because it’s an industrial slurry processed with hexane and acetone, with effects on and implications for flavor, texture, and health.

Indeed, the craft chocolate movement generally involves a reimagining of 20th century corporate business models that were based on maximum profit extraction and conformity of product, at the expense of personal, public, or environmental health and justice. Instead, in the craft mindset, elements such as real flavor, direct trade, individuality within community, social justice, delicious healthfulness, and sustainable production are paramount.

I have enormous respect for Domantas for reworking and redefining his recipes and techniques — no easy process — and for creating a new line that showcases his precision and purity with increased fidelity. He makes difficult look easy, and taste amazing. That’s power.

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Naive nano_lots: micro batch, mega depth

And Domantas didn’t stop there: after reinventing Chocolate Naive, he did it again! In mid 2017 he launched his Nano_Lot collection, limited edition chocolate bars made from micro batches of exclusive cacao. The depth and uniqueness of flavor achieved in the nano_lot bars continues the Naive project of extending our conception of what chocolate tastes like and what the texture feels like. We expect bean-to-bar chocolate to tell us a story, to engage us with a certain complexity, moving into new universes compared with one-note industrial chocolate. Here, the multi-dimensionality of the stories that Domantas tells with his nano_lots goes deep, and invites pause and repose, with eyes closed — or jumping, dancing, and cavorting, eyes open!

The nano_lot package inserts explain fascinating details of the scientific or geologic elements and processes behind these magnificent bars, such as cacao fermentation notes, chocolate flavor profiles, and history of the unique cacao farms from which Domantas sourced these limited-quantity highest-quality cacaos.

Domantas told me that with such small batches of cacao, he has just one chance to get it right. And he succeeds! What would you say to a Chocolate Uplift Travel Club trip to Vilnius in 2018, to see and learn more for ourselves, as Domantas spins cacao into chocolate?

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More on my instagram: #naivefever

Meanwhile, why the delightful logo of the man riding an impossible old fashioned penny-farthing bicycle with a missing back wheel, making it a sort of unicycle, possibly uphill, or perhaps off a cliff of naivete as the drawing seems to teeter at the top of the text? Domantas charmingly told me that the logo and business name represent his perspective that to think he can make first-class chocolate in Lithuania, he must be a fool, or naive. We know he is a genius, and leader.

Domantas says:

“Chocolate is as luxuriant as my most vivid dream and as humble as my simple reality.”

My Chocolate Uplift box customers say:

“Perfection of smoothness like I never tasted, with a completely rare and different flavor!”

 

“Wonderful and delicious inside and out.”

 

“The Kefir bar!!!! Oh my!!!!!!”

 

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In gratitude and delight, here’s to Chocolate Naive’s deliciously deceptive saturated simplicity, and to dear Domantas Uzpalis, Chocolate Uplift 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year!

Scroll for more Naive, and “keep eating real chocolate!”

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck
Founder Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours and Chocolate Uplift
Sustainable Craft Chocolate & Cacao Distribution
wholesale, retail, subscription box, tours
www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com
social: @chocolateuplift

Uplift Through Chocolate!

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Old Naive…

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and New Naive, reformulated inside and out! Here’s the sultry Super Dark on grapefruit chez moi…

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…and more New Naive, sustainable and scrumptious! Pro tip: don’t miss the beautiful stories on the back of each package!

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Chocolate Naive’s newest fantastic nano_lot, made from Colombia cacao from a biodiverse farm on the Ariari River and selected as one of the best Colombian cacaos of 2017, debuted at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, in November 2017, and I immediately claimed it and everything else I could : )  This new bar gives me notes of banana and bread, with a finish of sweet almond and dry lemon, amid layers of dense yet inviting complexity that deliver shades of bright wood or forest. That’s all from the cacao, and Domantas’s working of it!

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New: find Chocolate Naive’s Nicalizo Nicaragua nano_lot at Reprise Coffee Roasters, near Chicago, which roasts Nicaragua coffee! I also distribute additional Naive to additional locations, such as: 4121 Main in Pittsburgh, Honeycreeper Chocolate in Birmingham, and Mmelo Boutique Confections in Columbus!

Chocolate Naive Spices bar in my December 2017 Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes
I sampled the Kefir bar to my audience when I spoke at the 2017 Northwest Chocolate Festival on Chocolate Health Benefits: Body, Mind, Soul
Lights, camera, action: behind the scenes while taping the unboxing video featuring Naive’s Kefir bar
Chocolate Naive Kefir bar in my June 2017 Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes

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Reimagined Chocolate Naive inspired awe and ecstasy at the January 2017 New Naive launch at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.

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Chocolate Naive’s Ambrosia bar is made with local Lithuanian bee pollen.

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Silly and quirky at the 2017 Northwest Chocolate Festival, with big kisses to my ultra esteemed first 3 Chocolate Makers of the Year: Domantas Uzpalis of Chocolate Naive, 2017; Taylor Kennedy of Sirene Chocolate, 2015; Hans Westerink of Violet Sky Chocolate, 2016. It is a deep joy and a great honor to work with these gentlemen of chocolate, and to distribute and share their artistry! And it was fun to introduce them to each other!

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3, 2, 1, Naive: Taylor, yours truly, and Domantas at the Chocolate Naive booth at the Northwest Chocolate Festival!

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Power at hand: beloved Chocolate Naive, 2017 champion! #naivefever

Chocolate Uplift Subscription Box: Journey Through Chocolate

Posted on by valeriebeck

By “chocolate muse” Valerie Beck

Hello!

Do you remember the book of the month club? 

Or the Columbia Records tape of the month club? (A junior high school favorite!)

Are you into the contemporary subscription services, for makeup, or dog toys, or other items?

It’s fun to receive something new that you love, and to take a journey to a new adventure through this new discovery, isn’t it!


I’ve wanted to start a chocolate of the month club for quite some time, and even did for a short time back in 2007 while the 1.0 version of the original chocolate tours I founded in 2005 was running.

The timing has finally proved right, and I recently launched the Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription box, which gives you 4 top-notch chocolate bars per month, always sustainable and child-slavery-free, soy-free, small-batch, and scrumptious! I’ve met and connected with so many innovative chocolate makers over the years, as the chocolate revolution moves forward, and it’s a blast to connect you to their delicious artistry through the box!

In addition to selecting these special and sometimes hard-to-find bars for you, and choosing the packaging and monthly theme, I donate a meal to the children of CREER Africa for every box sold, as the kids are reintegrated into health and life after being trafficked onto the child labor cacao farms in Ivory Coast that supply big chocolate brands. This one-to-one give came about when I asked the CREER founder what she needed for the kids, such as books, toys, or shoes. She said that the rescue center needs food, rice for the kids. So that’s what we give.

The boxes also contain a friendship bracelet from Peru, to honor the heritage of cacao, and to say an extra thanks from me to you.

You can receive boxes quarterly, monthly, or one-and-done, for yourself or a gift, for a journey through chocolate.

Click for my latest unboxing video to see what was inside the March 2017 box and hear me share some backstories about the chocolate, cacao, or chocolate makers. Thank you, and keep eating real chocolate!

Onward and upward!

Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck

Founder/CEO Chocolate Uplift and Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours

www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com/subscription

@chocolateuplift

Uplift Through Chocolate!

Love at First Taste: 3 Chocolate Loves of 2016, part 3

Posted on by valeriebeck

By Valerie Beck, “Chocolate Muse,” and CEO/Founder of Chocolate Uplift and Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours

How do you like your drinking chocolate?

The Mayans liked their drinking chocolate hot, the Aztecs liked it cold, Montezuma liked it in golden goblets before visiting his harem, George Washington liked it with cream, Marie Antoinette liked it with orange blossom, the Marquis de Sade liked it as more suited to the seductive arts than Champagne, and I like it raw thanks to my chocolate beverage pick of 2016: Drink Cacoco!

Let me be clear: I’m not generally a fan of raw chocolate due to its often muddy flavors – roasting can bring out and clarifies flavors. 

Yet I love raw cacao, on my grapefruit at breakfast for example, for its delicious and often nutty flavor depending on the cacao, as well as its lively and invigorating properties and nutrients. 

Cacao is a superfood, rich in magnesium, iron, antioxidants, fiber, potassium, more. It lowers heart disease and stroke risk, and lowers blood pressure, while boosting brain function, blood flow, and of course mood!

Drink Cacoco takes raw cacao to a new level – or back to its pre-industrial glory – by retaining its liveliness and blending in herbs the way some of the historical celebrities above did, while on a mission to provide sustainable and nutrient-dense drinking chocolate that honors and protects the rainforest.

Drink Cacoco founders Erick Koon, Liam Blackmon, and Tony Portugal experimented with superfoods like cacao, and have created an outrageously smooth blended drinking chocolate that you mix with water – shaken, not stirred as Erick reminded me (I tried it both ways and it really is better shaken!) – for an incredibly flavorful yet light beverage, all natural with no industrial chemicals or “nasties,” that leaves you feeling uplifted and alive.

The highly-regarded Ecuador cacao is organic and ethically sourced (no child labor in this supply chain of course!), and the cool origami-style packaging uses no glue and is compostable, all in alignment with the founders’ mission to “revive the world through chocolate.”
Sounds like my own mission of “Uplift Through Chocolate” and my #chocolatefreedomproject, doesn’t it! It’s said that “great minds think alike” – and drink chocolate alike? 🙂

Erick sent me the Midnight Mystic and the Fire Walker blends, both of which I adore, after I met him through the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle. To be more precise, I met him when we were both chocolate scouting around town after the festival! 

Meanwhile, the Drink Cacoco kickstarter raised over $73,000, and new blends are coming! Maybe we’ll get some into my Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes!

Cheers to my chocolate beverage pick of 2016, delicious Drink Cacoco!

Click for my 2016 chocolate bar and chocolate bonbon picks, and see my instagram for daily chocolate as we move forward into a delicious and courageous 2017, exploring our themes of taste, health, sustainability, justice for people and planet, and uplift!
Your friend in chocolate,

Valerie

Valerie Beck
Founder/CEO Chocolate Uplift and Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours

Chocolate services to the trade and the public: Brokering, Consulting, Speaking, Subscriptions, Tours

www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com