For 15 Years, East Bay Corporate the Xocolate Bar Has Carved a Trail Towards the Odds

Malena Lopez-Maggi, founder and proprietor of Berkeley’s the Xocolate Bar, first encountered the myth of the lobster whilst scrolling social media. Somewhat than molting its shell very easily and rising a brand new one because the seasons exchange, the crustacean swells and swells inside of the similar shell till the discomfort turns into too nice — its shell pops off. Simplest then is the lobster in a position to in point of fact make bigger. “That is the Xocolate Bar,” Lopez-Maggi says. “We’re the lobster. In comparison to 10 years in the past, we’re doing seven or 8 occasions the amount. In the similar development. We’re at a bursting level.”

Regardless of having been in industry for 15 years, Lopez-Maggi says the Xocolate Bar nonetheless slightly will get through, scraping from high-volume vacation to high-volume vacation on skinny earnings. Yearly she wonders if she’ll make it to Valentine’s Day, she says, alternatively she questions if the February spice up can be sufficient to get her to Christmas. Discovering a approach to make a sustainable trail as a lady within the chocolate trade is as exhausting because it ever has been, Lopez-Maggi says, despite the fact that nowadays there are a couple of new tactics to string the needle.

The Xocolate Bar.

Lengthy ahead of she started her foray into the chocolate trade, Lopez-Maggi labored in a metalsmithing studio whilst her spouse Clive Brown labored with fused glass and ceramics. The couple was once all the time in search of new fabrics to mould, and whilst displaying on the KPFA Craft Truthful in 2005, they noticed artisan chocolate for the primary time. The chances of portray with suitable for eating minerals, sculpting molten chocolate, and alchemizing flavors had them each hooked from the start.

“We have been enamored with the theory of this multisensory sculpture subject matter,” Lopez-Maggi says. “We didn’t know the rest concerning the technical portions of dealing with goodies. We went with our intestine, reasonably than how the bonbons or pralines have been traditionally made.” Lots of the recipes they got here up with ended up being vegan. Neither Lopez-Maggi nor Brown are strictly plant-eaters, however they discovered that including milk to the tangy taste profile they craved created a curdled style of their goodies. So that they left the dairy out, a transfer that was once decidedly forward of its time.

Again in 2006, when it was once nonetheless uncool to name chocolate “plant-based,” Lopez-Maggi rented her first business kitchen for the Xocolate Bar within the Presidio Yacht Membership from a landlord, who took place to regulate the membership. Because it was once a shared kitchen, the younger corporate discovered it tricky to seek out area; robust smells or burners too on the subject of the chocolate may just have an effect on the general product. “We’d paintings those ridiculously lengthy days from 8 within the morning to 2 within the morning to get the batch excellent,” Lopez-Maggi says.

As issues was untenable, they discovered a larger location to hire. The funding made sense; the gap allowed them to place manufacturing within the again, with a tiny retailer out entrance. In 2008, they opened their doorways in Berkeley; the hole took place to fall the similar week the inventory marketplace got here aside. The small store clutched to stick open, depending on word-of-mouth reasonably than promoting. “We held on and grew slowly through the years,” Lopez-Maggi says.

With a rooted location, Lopez-Maggi says she was once in a position to develop the industry, however she started to really feel financially limited, like doorways simply weren’t opening for her, she says. She’d long past thru chapter years prior, carried scholar debt, and says she’s been denied industry loans, traces of credit score, and a loan. “We didn’t have ‘dad’s farm’ to set a mortgage in opposition to,” Lopez-Maggi says. “It’s indirectly as a result of I’m a lady of colour, however as a result of I’m in an financial place this is traditional amongst girls of colour.”

Margins on chocolate are notoriously low, as they’re for all meals ventures, so securing financing to develop the Xocolate Bar has persisted to be a fight through the years, Lopez-Maggi says. However new financing choices — ones out of doors of conventional financial institution loans — have lately begun to supply alternatives for small companies just like the Xocolate Bar. Lopez-Maggi simply took out a mortgage from microfinance outfit Kiva, plus a mortgage from a financial institution, and introduced a GoFundMe to lift budget for upgraded chocolate apparatus. “We will be able to’t be running on two 10-pound tempering machines anymore,” Lopez-Maggi says. “Our refrigerator is 25 years outdated, which is ridiculous.”

The Xocolate Bar

She’s now not the one industry proprietor having a look to triumph over boundaries to financing thru nontraditional investment resources. In fresh months, Yuka Ioroi’s Cassava eating place within the Richmond District of San Francisco and Raul Medinas’ Venganza Meals in Oakland used WeFunder, a web-based crowdfunding provider, to lift the cash wanted to succeed in their monetary objectives. In Oakland Reesa Kashuk’s Poppy Bagels discovered SMBX to be an interesting choice to conventional fundraising, and GW “Chef” Chunk of One thing Higher Meals seemed to monetary company Runway Venture for make stronger.

However restricted get right of entry to to capital isn’t the one factor Lopez-Maggi says has stored her from rising her industry sooner. “I do know many ladies who can’t scale up like our male opposite numbers,” Lopez-Maggi says. “It’s the intersection of intergenerational wealth and privilege within the equation.”

Wendy Lieu from Socola Chocolatier, which she and her sister have run since 2001, can relate to feeling just like the playing cards are stacked in opposition to her as a lady entrepreneur. She and her sister introduced at a farmers marketplace in Santa Rosa when Lieu was once 19 years outdated and her sister, Susan, was once 16. They bought their merchandise out of doors their oldsters’ nail salon. The industry title is Vietnamese, so curious shoppers would ask if the sisters have been promoting Vietnamese chocolate; Lieu would inform them no, simply that she and her sister have been Vietnamese American. “Everybody else [in the industry] was once male and most commonly white,” Wendy says. “Plus we have been two teenage sisters beginning their very own industry. We had so much to end up as a result of we have been younger, we weren’t male and Ecu, and now not classically educated.”

Mindy Fong, proprietor and founding father of Jade Sweets, cites Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker’s explosive recognition in Berkeley round 2007 for her entering the chocolate recreation. The luck of that corporate, which was once later received through Hershey, forecasted the place chocolate was once entering into Fong’s thoughts. However in contrast to Scharffen Berger, which was once based through a vintner, Fong’s industry — which frequently highlights flavors traditional to Filipino and Chinese language American citizens akin to mango, rice, and more than a few teas — was once as soon as ridiculed through a buyer for its “esoteric flavors,” she recollects. “It was once a bit of bit stunning,” Fong says. “I’m having a look at him pondering, how are you able to suppose this fashion?”

Nonetheless, Lieu doesn’t wish to give the affect she’s sour. She sooner or later discovered it was once a bonus to characteristic less-common flavors after which started to marvel why Vietnamese espresso couldn’t be a taste for chocolate, or guava, or durian. There have been no Asian, girl, or Vietnamese chocolatiers that she knew of in Sonoma, the county the place she began the industry. “The panorama has modified within the remaining twenty years and it’s been thrilling to peer extra illustration from girls and folks of colour within the chocolate trade,” Lieu says. “I think proud to were a part of the motion for range.”

The Xocolate Bar

In 2020, the Xocolate Bar store close right down to shoppers because of the pandemic and pivoted to on-line gross sales, which the corporate had by no means presented ahead of; delivery all the time gave the look of an excessive amount of paintings. Now the Solano Road store resembles a mini-warehouse with programs stacked flooring to ceiling. The workforce stands in what was once the retail area, a few of the mountains of cardboard bins, madly wrapping programs in tape. It was once your best option to stick afloat, Lopez-Maggi says, and helped spur the industry in a brand new path. “We have been busier than ever ahead of,” Lopez-Maggi says. Faire, a Bay House-based tech corporate like Etsy for wholesalers, was once a large boon. “Quantity has quadrupled since ahead of the pandemic,” Lopez-Maggi says. “It’s this Tetris puzzle of how one can maximize area. It’s consistent.”

Issues could also be having a look up, however scaling up supplies the similar demanding situations as ever; discovering an reasonably priced location to develop into can be a problem, Lopez-Maggi says. This brings her again to the myth of the lobster: Her industry remains to be rising, however the constraints of financial and cultural pressures appear to repeatedly shut in. Any day now, despite the fact that, Lopez-Maggi is having a bet the burden of it’s sure to crack. “We’re slowly, slowly rising,” she says.