[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello everyone, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Brad Kintzer, the Chief Chocolate officer of Cho, a pioneering chocolate company whose source-to-bar philosophy has made it one of the most respected in the food industry. Just a reminder to our listeners, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Clearly, if it ain't broke, don't fix it is an adage that doesn't apply to Chief Chocolate. Launched in 2005, the Berkeley-based company has been at the forefront Chief Chocolate innovation by emphasizing sustainable and ethical sourcing as a key metric of quality. Over the years, Cho has been highly awarded for its commitment to sourcing standards, flavors, and package design, and developed a cachet that is rare among consumer brands. Given its standing and success, one might wonder why the company recently introduced massive changes in the formulation and branding of Chief Chocolate. For Cho's Chief Chocolate officer, Brad Kintzer, it all goes back to the company's overarching mission of making better chocolate. In the following interview, I spoke with Brad about Cho's evolution as a company and brand, having committed to using plant-based ingredients for all of Chief Chocolate, and overhauled its familiar packaging in December. As part of our conversation, Brad discussed his role in the development of Cho as a leading brand of premium chocolate, how the company defines better when evaluating progress, why he's inspired by and has a deep admiration for winemaking, and how the company assessed timing when unveiling Cho's new look. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Brad Kintzer, who is the Chief Chocolate Officer of Chief Chocolate. Brad, how are you?
[00:02:27] Brad Kintzer: I'm doing great, Ray. Thanks for having me today.
[00:02:29] Ray Latif: Thanks so much for joining me. And you're calling in from Chief Chocolate World Headquarters, or at least the world headquarters of your factory, yes?
[00:02:39] Brad Kintzer: That's exactly right. Yeah, this is it. The one and the only, Berkeley, California.
[00:02:43] Ray Latif: Very cool. Very cool. You mentioned to me before we got on the mics that you're in the lab, the R&D lab, which is, that seems like an appropriate place for someone of your title.
[00:02:52] Brad Kintzer: Yes, it's my little happy place here. So yeah, apologies in advance. You might hear a couple of forklifts and other accoutrement noises on the way here.
[00:03:04] Ray Latif: Well, I wish that someone could invent like a smell-o-vision or at least like you could like smell through the podcast what you are, the aromas that I'm sure you are surrounded by. We get a sense that you're in a factory, but it's the essence of that chocolate. That's what we really want to get, you know?
[00:03:22] Brad Kintzer: That's it, right? Yeah. I can tell you usually I in here because I'm so sa I was fortunate enough to that I'm coming off of ri
[00:03:40] Ray Latif: So when you open the door to the office, you just get hit with like some hard, these amazing aromas Chief Chocolate.
[00:03:47] Brad Kintzer: It really is. It's hard to describe it, but it's amazing when you're grinding cocoa beans and, you know, it's pretty amazing smell. I can only imagine. It's the best sales tool, I'll tell you that much. Love bringing people here. It's like the minute they enter, wow, okay, we're here. It's pretty cool.
[00:04:03] Ray Latif: Well, I hope I can visit sometime the next time I'm in the Bay Area. It'd be an honor. Thank you very much. See, I'm coming now. Now I'm just going to open the door. I'm like, Brad invited me.
[00:04:14] Brad Kintzer: I'll text you the address.
[00:04:17] Ray Latif: Thank you very much. I didn't know you were on vacation. I was on your Instagram. You have a great Instagram handle. Oh, yeah. Theobromantics. Is that is that how you pronounce it?
[00:04:29] Brad Kintzer: Well, yeah, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. I just I was kind of going for Theobroma antics because Theobroma is the name is the scientific name for the genus that cacao is in or cocoa beans are in. So the cocoa tree. So it's kind of just, you know, I just wanted to create something that was fun and playful around, around Kakao and all that, so.
[00:04:52] Ray Latif: And the name you picked for the account, it doesn't have Brad Kintzer is what I'm trying to say. You have Elbrad. Elbrad, yeah. Elbrad.
[00:05:01] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, I'm just, I'm not sure why I did that. I guess I should probably change that. I think I was, I think I was going for a little bit of anonymity, but no, it's just, it's, it's good.
[00:05:12] Ray Latif: Well, I'm sorry that anonymity is probably going to be a little shaken by the fact that I've just announced who you are and where people can find you on Instagram. You know, it wasn't easy. It's funny you bring that up because it wasn't easy to find you on social or anything really, because you're not on LinkedIn, as far as I can tell. I'm not. I only found you on Instagram through the Chief Chocolate Instagram account, which I think tagged you in one of their posts. Right. But it doesn't seem like you're a big social media guy.
[00:05:43] Brad Kintzer: You know, I love social media, but I also I don't know. Yeah, it's a good point. I should probably step up my game.
[00:05:51] Ray Latif: I don't know. I mean, I think anonymity is great. You know, frankly, and I'm being maybe a little too honest here. If I wasn't in the position I'm in right now, I would probably be doing the exact same thing. But it's just part of being in the business that you have to have a social media presence.
[00:06:06] Brad Kintzer: I know. I think that's why I did it. It's just, I see so many cool things in the world Chief Chocolate. And I just felt like, okay, I've got to, I got to just at least have fun with this. And it's always been about learning and discovery and sharing that with people. So that's kind of what's driving that, that little account that I have.
[00:06:23] Ray Latif: Well, it's very cool. It actually reminds me of this guy who used to work for Noma, and he's a, I don't know, a food biologist. I don't know exactly what you would call him, but he has a beautiful Instagram page, and it's pretty reminiscent of some of the things that you post in terms of the science behind making chocolate. His name is David Zilber, if anyone wants to know. Yeah, do you know him?
[00:06:42] Brad Kintzer: I don't know him, but yeah, I've heard of him. I'd love to, yeah, I'll have to check him out.
[00:06:46] Ray Latif: In all these discussions that you and I have had, and it's only been a couple really, but in both cases, they've been really wonderful because I've gotten to know a little bit more about Cho and the genius behind this brand, the history behind this brand. And it's just so remarkable. For folks who aren't really familiar with the origins and history of Cho, can you just give us a little bit of a refresher here?
[00:07:10] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, sure. So Cho started 2005, 2007, you know, and it was sort of in its primordial stages in those years. And it was founded by a few people. The NASA space shuttle technologist was a chocolate veteran from Germany. And also, you know, the first people to really fund the company were the folks that started Wired Magazine. And so it started with this, you know, just huge blitz of awesome, really creative minds, big thinkers. And, you know, that's really the spirit of Cho is just thinking big about chocolate. And the idea was, how do we, how do we look at chocolate differently? Something that's, you know, known and loved all over the world, but there's just a lot of areas that are ripe for innovation. So that was, that was really the founding spirit.
[00:08:04] Ray Latif: There is a lot of technology that goes into what you guys do. And, you know, you talked to me about the concept of using technology to make chocolate better. Let's talk about that. First of all, let's talk about better. You know, what defines better as it relates to the evolution Chief Chocolate in your mind?
[00:08:26] Brad Kintzer: Well, there's so many things that are amazing about chocolate. And one of the hardest things about researching chocolate and studying chocolate and trying to understand consumers and that sort of thing is that everybody loves chocolate for the most part, even if it's good or if it's bad. It can be the cheapest little candy chocolate, or it can be a sophisticated chocolate, and everyone loves chocolate. But there's so much room for improvement in the world Chief Chocolate. with regards to everything from how it's grown, how the cocoa beans are grown, the relationships between farmers and the buyers and Chief Chocolate makers is still stuck in a very old colonial model. The flavor spectrum that exists So really, if you look at something like coffee or something like wine, these food products that are really revered and have sort of come into their own renaissance in the last 50 years, chocolate has just as much of a reason to be there in that same elevated status. So that's how I think about better, is really better from a from a social perspective. There's a lot of inequities, there's a lot of injustice in the cocoa supply chain that have been well documented, but also better in terms of just overall quality, the flavors, the exploration, the optimization of cocoa and chocolate as a food is still yet to be tapped into.
[00:10:01] Ray Latif: Are you talking about from a flavor perspective? Because I think that's the first thing people would notice, maybe texture. Texture and flavor, I think are the two things people would notice most about an improvement on what they are currently eating as it relates to chocolate. But how do you make flavor better in a way that's going to really impact a large number of people? Or are you even really trying to make a better tasting chocolate for the masses?
[00:10:28] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is, you know, there's nothing wrong with a supermarket candy bar in terms of flavor. It serves a certain role. However, if you really dig into the world of cacao, and the world of cocoa beans and chocolate making, you just realize that, wow, many of us have grown up eating cocoa flavored sugar and milk. And that's a beautiful thing, but also it hasn't quite really showcased the beauty that can be found with great cocoa. And I use cocoa and cacao interchangeably, but That's the core ingredient that defines chocolate flavor when you're talking about a higher cacao content bar. And so looking at things like just the basics of any agricultural product, looking at the genetics, the genetics of cocoa is something that's still being untangled as we speak. So, you know, as 10 years ago, there was this thinking that there's three main cocoa varietals. Well, that's sort of been, you know, with genetic analysis and these sort of things, it's actually been kind of torn down. And now people realize that there's closer to 10 or 12 or probably even more major groups of cacao, major groups of flavor, major groups of genetics. So starting just with the basic building block of the varietals of cacao, There's thousands of varietals of cacao that have yet to really be explored from a chocolate making perspective. For a long Chief Chocolate has been focused on how do you make an inexpensive treat for the masses, which is awesome. But at the same time, that comes at a cost. It comes at a cost for the farmers that are growing cacao, but also it comes at a cost for the consumer from a sensory perspective. So, you know, who knows how quickly this will grow, if it'll ever really parallel path with coffee and wine, but that's sort of our hope.
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[00:13:13] Ray Latif: When we talk about using technology to make chocolate better, you've defined better. Can we define technology? I mean, how Chief Chocolate technology evolved over the years? And I hear some whirling in the background and hissing in the background. I mean, what technology are you using right now to get to that next stage of development Chief Chocolate?
[00:13:34] Brad Kintzer: To me and to show really, and to I would say most chocolate makers, technology when applied to the cacao world, to Chief Chocolate world, in terms of the Chief Chocolate world, isn't necessarily about fancy expensive machines. It's more about how do we communicate more directly, more easily with the whole supply chain. So looking at tradition, it's rare that a cocoa farmer would know a chocolate maker. And so if you take what we believe is true, which is that great cocoa beans make great chocolate, and the people that are growing your cocoa beans aren't in touch with the people that are actually making Chief Chocolate, Beyond that, many of the people that are growing cocoa beans have never even made chocolate from their own beans. In fact, many have never even tasted chocolate before. If you look at it in that sense, there's a lot of really easy things that can be done to change that whole dynamic. And it can be as simple as bringing basic machinery for how to make chocolate to the cocoa farms. And I should step back just for the listeners. who might not know this, that cocoa is grown in purely tropical places. So cocoa, the Theobroma cacao, the cocoa tree where all cocoa beans have come from, is native to the Amazon. And it's grown all around the world, primarily in West Africa. About 70% of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa. And so one of the reasons being that it grows pretty well there, but also it's also very, very inexpensive labor. And cocoa is very labor-intensive crop. And most of those cocoa beans are harvested by hand with a machete. There's not a lot of mechanization that you see in modern agricultural systems. So it's very, very hand labor-intensive. And so going back to the technology, innovating in that realm where we've actually, part of our program that we call ChoSource is bringing labs, little chocolate-making labs, little bean-to-bar chocolate-making labs to the farmers at Origin. And we've set up 10 of these labs at our partner cooperatives, farmer cooperatives, also at national research stations. and we've been able to put these basic tools and again really basic stuff in the hands of the farmers, the technical directors of cooperatives, the scientists who are making decisions about what genetics to plant. A lot of times they don't have a direct connection with cocoa and chocolate itself. That's really when I think about technology, a lot of it centers around closing that huge geographic, social, socioeconomic gap and communication gap that exists between ourselves and these farmers that are worlds away, whether it's in the Amazon or West Africa or anywhere.
[00:16:47] Ray Latif: That's so mind-blowing to think that the farmers, growers of cacao may never have tasted chocolate before. I'm trying to think of a parallel to that. It's almost like, I guess, someone who, I don't know, raises maple trees and yet has never tasted maple syrup.
[00:17:03] Brad Kintzer: Look at coffee, just as an example, which was really our inspiration for these labs. coffee in the early 90s, late 80s, many coffee farmers had never really tasted their own coffee beans from a sensory perspective, like really, you know, had a coffee cupping as they say. And there were a few companies that went down Central America and they realized that this was a huge impediment to their attaining good quality coffee beans. And so they did these trainings, tastings, and then it became this thing that really spread all around the world of coffee. And now it's quite rare for a coffee farmer, at least from a cooperative perspective, a large representative of many, many farmers, for them to not have some kind of a quality check with regards to sensory analysis. And so that's what we're really trying to bring to the world Chief Chocolate. And Cho is really one of the first companies to build these labs on a scale. We were lucky enough to have a grant from the US Agency for International Development A few different grants actually for close to $5 million to be able to go around the world and install these labs, train farmers. We were able to bring in cacao farmers from West Africa to Berkeley, Ecuador, Peru, Dominican Republic. We've done a lot of really cool work that, at this point, these folks that are growing the cacao for us, they're really friends, they're partners. And for a small company like us, it makes all the difference with regards to quality. So that's really a lot of what we get out of it. The farmers are able to get a better, more direct financial benefit. We're able to pay directly a much higher price than otherwise for that quality. And we have a financial system that incentivizes quality. So they're able to to really get more out of it.
[00:18:56] Ray Latif: It's clear that you have a passion for the agricultural part of what Cho is all about. I mean, clearly you have a passion for everything from beginning to end, but this title of Chief Chocolate Officer, you attained it from having a long history at every stage of Chief Chocolate making process. I mentioned maple syrup earlier, and I think your background really did start with maple trees, right?
[00:19:23] Brad Kintzer: It did, yeah. I was living in Vermont, going to school in Vermont, and studying botany and agriculture in Vermont, which is a long way from any cocoa trees, that's for sure. However, there is a beautiful place called the Montreal Botanical Garden. They have a fantastic conservatory or sort of big, huge, fancy greenhouse, and they had a cacao tree, and I just sort of fell in love with it there. I was doing work in snowshoes, measuring maple trees all over remote areas of Vermont, and I sort of have an you know, personal moment where I realized that maybe there were some warmer climates in which I could work. So that's what sort of made me think about tropical botany and agriculture and sort of switched all my studies and got into the cacao tree and spent about a year working on cocoa farms in Latin America and then came back up to California and started working Scharffen Berger. Scharffen Berger the first what they call bean to bar chocolate companies to open up in the United States in about 50 years. So it was really the first of the Chief Chocolate renaissance, so to speak. And that was really the beginning of a lot of things for me in terms of learning more about the relationship between genetics and fermentation and roasting and all of those key parameters that really inform the final quality of a chocolate.
[00:20:49] Ray Latif: It's interesting to hear their focus on quality and this essence of a bean to bar brand, especially when you were working there, because I don't think that really was an important factor and not nearly as important as it is to some consumers now. When was it that you started working for Sharp for Burger?
[00:21:08] Brad Kintzer: I started working for Scharffen Berger, I think it was 2001. They'd started in 1996. And yeah, I think they even coined the term bean-to-bar early on. I think they were the first American company to put cocoa percentages on a bar, like on the front label and things like that. They were really inspired by European chocolate, which had a requirement to put the percentage of ingredients on the back of on the ingredient label. So they thought, hey, that's kind of cool, let's put it right on the front. And so that was sort of the beginning of it there.
[00:21:39] Ray Latif: Well, like many fast-growing differentiated brands, Scharffen Berger was eventually acquired by The Hershey company. Makes a lot of sense, right? Yep. I think some people may have been dismayed to hear that, but you have a lot of good things to say about Hershey. You ended up working there a number of years after the acquisition, right?
[00:21:56] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, so I was with Scharffen Berger few years before the acquisition, a few years after. And I mean, honestly, for me, all of this is just about, it's about just the fascinating journey of learning and to be able to grow and learn in my own way, to be able to share that with people. And so Hershey was, you know, I grew up outside of Philadelphia. My aunt lives outside of Hershey and it was always just sort of this dream of a place. I remember very, very young taking like a little train ride that they had where you could go through the greenhouse and see the cocoa trees. And so I just have these really, very early memories of Hershey as many of us do, but to be able to go The Hershey and work in the R&D facility with just amazing people, great people, kind people, smart people, the world's best really in their field. It was fascinating. I mean, I had access to the most amazing minds in the world Chief Chocolate. and confectionary. So I could talk to the flavor chemist who was working on the next Jolly Rancher's flavors and try to understand how he was piecing that all together and talking to big marketing initiatives and things like that. So for me, it was fascinating. I think I try to look at the positive side, of course. Big companies The Hershey, they're selling a lot of sugar and things like that, which isn't necessarily healthy for people, but it was a really neat experience, for sure.
[00:23:23] Ray Latif: We'll talk about Cho's new packaging in a moment, but so much of what you do ties back to the farming community that you were talking about earlier, and it's on the back of your package. And I'll read the copy here. It's something you spoke about earlier. Most cacao farmers have never tasted chocolate made from their beans. So we built 10 Cho flavor labs around the world. We work alongside local farmers and agronomists to improve every aspect from seed to bean to bar while helping communities and the environment along the way. For a consumer to read that, I think most consumers would be ecstatic that they are buying this type of product. I say most, there might be some people like, I don't care, but I think most people, especially nowadays, would love to hear that. That being said, you know, when you came to the company, was that a primary focus for you? Or had that already been built into the mission of Cho?
[00:24:18] Brad Kintzer: I think from the beginning of CHO it was how do we create a better quality chocolate and showcase the diversity Chief Chocolate flavors to people. And I think what really ended up happening was the people that founded CHO realized pretty early on that that's easier said than done. And there is a lot of complexity to creating specific flavors and showcasing different diversity of flavors in the cocoa world. In the world of wine, books have been written, many, many, many books have been written about how to exactly grow the right varietals, how to treat them, how to ferment them, how to, you know, all of this has been extraordinarily well-documented. Even things like soils and sunshine, all that stuff has been really well-researched, well-documented, and really brought to the consumer as well. In the world Chief Chocolate, almost everything about chocolate is 50 years behind something like wine. You know, it's way, way behind. So there's no book to buy that will teach us how to make a specific chocolate or how to make a great, you know, fruity flavored chocolate or a chocolatey flavored chocolate or something like this. And I'm not talking about additional flavors. I'm talking about the natural nuances that can be found in different types of cocoa beans. So certain cocoa beans, like for example, cocoa beans from West Africa tend to have a really big fudgy profile. Cocoa beans from a place like Peru tend to be much fruitier, with more acidity. Cocoa beans from Venezuela, Madagascar, they all taste quite different. And it's not unlike grapes, it's not unlike coffee, it's not unlike so many foods, right? It's not unlike people, right? You have these, you know, we all look different from different parts of the world. I mean, it's really just this You know, cocoa has evolved just like anything else that's been spread around the world, just like anything else, and it's created its own unique little clusters. You know, the cocoa pods look different in certain places and they taste different and all this. So while there was an interest in showcasing the diversity of flavors that exist in cocoa, how to do that was tricky. So we quickly realized that we need to really work directly with cocoa farms, directly with cocoa communities. And we needed to bring them the tools for them to be able to grow a better cacao, to be able to grow different types of cacao. And that was really what was the dawn of the ChoSource program, which is our program where we built these labs and do a lot of training and really co-creating better raw materials, specifically cacao.
[00:27:03] Ray Latif: That being said, the idea of marrying tech and tradition might sound incongruent to some people. However, you had a great analogy about Picasso and his ability to paint when we're talking about this subject. And I think our audience would really enjoy it. Could you explain what you meant?
[00:27:23] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, actually, I was stepping outside of my field a little bit here, so I'm not sure of the history, but I always had this impression that Picasso was a surprisingly fantastic, realistic painter, but he sort of chose to explore less realistic art. And so I sometimes think about Chief Chocolate world as being like Picasso, when we're still trying to learn how to paint realistically. And then we'll have the freedom to be able to really explore full, unbridled creativity. We have a lot of work to do as an industry, especially speaking of the Chief Chocolate industry, to really learn the nuances of the craft to really understand the nuances and the science behind what creates great flavor, whether it's genetics, whether it's soil, fermentation. A lot of people don't realize that cocoa, a lot of the flavor in cocoa is defined by fermentation process that's done at the farm origin, which is incredibly complex. There's still so much to be learned from a very simple basic level before we're able to really go and unleash some truly awesome things. So I have great hope that as we go along here, as we learn more and more every year, we're learning more and more as an industry, we're going to be able to find ourselves in a situation where there's better and better chocolate every year.
[00:28:59] Ray Latif: Well, you're on your way. I guess you've been on your way for some time now. Because when I think about the new Cho, I think about that next evolution, that next era. You know, I guess painters and other artists, they have eras, right? Like the most famous ones. And this is the next era of Cho, if we want to make that analogy. The thing about the brand now is that it almost looks like a completely different brand than what it had been. You have a new look, you have new ingredients, you have new partnerships. Essentially, one could call it a completely different brand.
[00:29:36] Brad Kintzer: I'd say we made a big leap. And it was something that, you know, it's sort of been brewing for a while. And we just, as I said earlier on, I think, you know, we've always been interested in exploring how to change the world Chief Chocolate, how to do something new, different. And so that's just sort of in us. And so every now and then we just have to kind of reassess what we're doing. And that was really the moment. We took a few years and really looked at it and pretty proud of what we've done.
[00:30:06] Ray Latif: It was a big leap. And I think sometimes big leaps, people think about them as, as a quick thing, you know, like you just made that leap and you weren't really thinking about it, but you said this has been fermenting for, for many years, but the timing happened this year in 2022. This is when you made the big announcement. This is, this is when every, all the new packaging, everything that represents show today has been rolling out. Why was this year the right time to do it?
[00:30:33] Brad Kintzer: Well, hopefully it was. You know, I think it's, uh, this year, geez, this, this whole, the whole world has gone through so many changes in the last couple of years, really, you know, it's, it's been a fascinating couple of years, three years, really. We were, we're actually acquired by a company in Japan several years ago, about four years ago now, um, phenomenal company called Izaki Glico. They're most known in the United States, uh, in many parts of the world for a product called Kaki, which is like a chocolate covered bread stick. And really, when they bought us, they love the company, they love what we're doing, they love our relationship as farmers, they love our chocolate making. But they really said, hey, let's have an assessment of what's happening in the world Chief Chocolate. We were able to do some really cool consumer research, which we've never been able to do anything close to that. We were able to kind of have a close look at what the consumer's really looking for, what we really want to do for ourselves. And we took our time. We weren't in a rush. We took our time. We just grew quite slowly. We decided that we wanted to go with fully plant-based. We wanted to move 100% organic. We wanted to 100% fully traceable with our cacao, fair trade cacao. We wanted to completely change up our flavor mix as well. So different origins of cacao, all new stuff, new packaging, new design, dual portion control, uh, really, really culminated and new as, as that whol still, you know, for, for here and I've still got t I'm working with that. I many, many years now. And it's the same old show. It does, which is kind of sh
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[00:33:10] Ray Latif: It's pretty impressive what you've been able to accomplish. You know, you're talking about the plant based ingredients going completely organic, you know, traceable ingredients. This is all remarkable. Going back once again to this question of why now? Could you have launched this, say, last year? Could you have potentially launched this in 2023 or beyond?
[00:33:31] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, absolutely. I think so. I mean, you know, I just said we went completely plant-based, which was probably our biggest change. We have a phenomenal line of, you know, traditional dairy milk chocolates. They've won, you know, dozens of international chocolate awards. They're beloved by a lot of people, but we just felt like exploring and we felt like You know, this was years ago, we started kind of tinkering around in the lab here with what would happen if we just played around with plants, just to see if we could recreate something that's what we know and love about a milk chocolate, that softness, that creaminess, that caramelliness. And we kept tinkering and we had a lot of fails. hundreds, literally hundreds of fails, not even close to the mark we were shooting for. But then eventually started getting a little closer, a little closer. And then, and then we realized that we had something really special and something different and something that people were really interested in. So, you know, I have hopes that the plant based movement will continue. continue to be strong. And as there's more and more innovation, more and more technology applied to the idea of reducing carbon footprint, of increasing human health, all those things. So yeah, I think it could have happened last year. I think it could have happened, I don't know if it could have happened five years ago, but I think hopefully it'll still be relevant in a few years as well.
[00:34:54] Ray Latif: Well, I mean, there's a ton of momentum for plant-based everything. You were at Expo West, you know, every other booth was touting plant-based this or that. And, you know, I think sometimes, and hopefully this isn't the case, but you know, the phrase will lose its meaning, it will lose the beauty behind what you're trying to accomplish with plants. You know, I don't think that will happen in the case of chou, but, you know, using ingredients like cocoa butter and coconut oil As a replacement for milk and butter and things like that, you know, I think given your expertise, one would think, oh, yeah, they could do that. But does it taste the same is the big question, I think, for your existing consumers. Does it taste like what people who have been buyers of Cho forever? are they going to get the same texture and flavor that they had from years in the past?
[00:35:47] Brad Kintzer: Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, that's one area of research that we didn't do a lot of. We did some, but I think overall people have been absolutely elated and surprised, really, at the quality that we've come up with. And really, the key is using something that recreates that softness of milk chocolate. In this case, we used cashew butter, also that creaminess. So we used oat milk. And then that sort of caramelliness that's sort of a signature flavor in our milk chocolates, which is where we used a really special Balinese coconut sugar. So really, it created a trifecta of what we think is pretty darn delicious chocolate. you know, in terms of, is it recreated exactly? No. But that wasn't actually what we were going for, you know, just maybe the easy answer, but we really weren't looking to absolutely recreate what we were already doing just in plant-based form. We really wanted to explore, you know, what we could do differently with chocolate. And so it wasn't all about just recreating everything that we do plant-based. It was kind of creating new recipes or new flavors and new worlds of flavor through plants.
[00:37:00] Ray Latif: In hindsight, do you wish you had surveyed more of your existing consumers to find out what they thought of this new formulation? Or was the survey and the research that you did, was it more about the traceability, the organic, the sustainability of what you're doing?
[00:37:18] Brad Kintzer: it was really a little bit more mission driven. And I think that we would have, we did plenty of research. Let me just say that. I mean, you know, sort of like when do you stop doing research, right? You can kind of explore data too far almost sometimes. So I think, I think we felt like we were at a good place. We felt confident with what we had done and this isn't stagnant, you know, We're excited to continue to evolve and change. And I think these formulas are not locked in and set. We can launch new products in the coming months. And we just launched a new bar a couple of days ago, a collaboration bar with the Monterey Bay Aquarium that has sustainably sourced seaweed and hand-harvested sea salt into a 74% dark chocolate. So we're constantly innovating, constantly coming out with new things. And so I feel good about where we landed.
[00:38:11] Ray Latif: That's so exciting, especially for like food and beverage nerds like us here at Mavinet and Taste Radio. We'd love to hear that stuff. Seaweed and sea salt and chocolate. That sounds incredible. Seaweed's hot. I can hear some of your colleagues working on some of that stuff in your lab. There's things. I love that. I really do. Because before we hopped on the mics, you were like, oh, I'm a little worried about this. I'm like, no, this is great. This is so much better than. you know, someone in their kitchen at home or, you know, in their closet in their bedroom, just a little Zoom set up. So we're getting the real essence of what you're doing over there at CHO. I'm not faking it, Ray. I'm not faking it. Definitely, definitely not. Did your R&D lab, were you also working on the new packaging in your R&D lab or was that much more of a, you know, different department for the company? Because this is a completely different label, package, look for Cho. The only thing that remained the same is the logo.
[00:39:07] Brad Kintzer: Yeah. So, you know, that's exactly right. And we have a, we have an awesome marketing team and we, we have a great agency that we work with on this project and they did a lot of this work and, you know, I had many, many, many conversations with them, but it was really, you know, they really kind of drove that whole angle. You know chose a small company. We're really we're really quite small. So, you know, we have conversations daily as a team It's been hard with kovat and all that not being together in person as much but but really, you know We we talk every day about who we are what we want to be, you know, we push each other sometimes it's difficult but you know, the the rub the rub makes the pearl or whatever the saying is so
[00:39:48] Ray Latif: When I look at the new Cho packaging, it feels much younger. It feels more fun. It feels approachable in a way that I think a lot of natural consumers or natural channel consumers would be interested in. You know, the old packaging was great. It felt a little bit more specialty. Like, you know, you could go to a small retailer in, I don't know, in Berkeley, and you would find Show Chocolate there. This, I think, gives you permission to go, and when I say this, the bar I'm holding in my hand, which is your Dark Duo, feels like it gives you permission to go into a lot of different places. So when you're talking about the packaging, let's talk about the fun part of it first. Was that intentional? Did you want it to be, I guess, a little bit more fun than what it had been?
[00:40:41] Brad Kintzer: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that was a big, if there was one thing that we learned from our research, you know, after all those years of research, it was connected with the consumer. Woo. No, but it really was that if I were to say it, say it in one sentence, it was, you know, find creative ways to really connect with the consumer, make them feel something emotionally. And so that's where we really wanted packaging where you have sort of fun names that are playful, you open it up and there's, you know, that's where the kind of wow moment is where it's, you know, visually dynamic under, you know, opening the bar up, seeing the three individually wrapped bars, seeing the graphics on the inside. There's even a QR code, as you probably noticed that when you pull one of the bars out, you can see a QR where you can find literally the names of the farmers who grew the cocoa that's in that bar, you know, thanks to a very simple, rustic kind of Google Doc sheet. But that's something that we really feel strongly about is that traceability.
[00:41:49] Ray Latif: I mean, it's beautiful. Like when you think about the packaging, it's also very functional in so many ways. It's easy to open and close. You do have those individual bars. Each bar comes in three pieces. It's a lot easier to manage, I think, than perhaps what it had then. I think, you know, talking about where you can go with this branding, is it your intention to be a bigger brand? You talked about Cho being a small company in relative terms, but does this new look allow you to become a much bigger brand?
[00:42:23] Brad Kintzer: The real goal here is just to be an excellent brand. We want to do things well. We want to be socially seen as thought leaders. We want to be seen as creative. We want to be seen as a great chocolate bar. We don't need to be the most expensive bar or the fanciest or the know, necessarily the most unique, but we just want to create an awesome chocolate for people that can feel great about the flavor, great about where it comes from, and proud to support a company like us. So that's really the crux of it.
[00:42:57] Ray Latif: It's an amazing thing you said, right? We wanna be an excellent brand. It's not about being the biggest brand out there or the most profitable brand out there. That will come as a result of being an excellent brand. And I think that's such a great way of looking at how to build a company, how to build a sustainable, long-lasting, value-driven company. And it's one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you, Brad, because if I were an entrepreneur, that's exactly what I'd want. as a brand owner and as someone who's trying to make the world better via whatever it is you're doing, whether it's, you know, making soft drinks or making chocolate or making beer or whatever. And, you know, so much respect to you and your team for what you have accomplished with Cho and the runway you have now. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me. It's been so enlightening, so exciting and so much fun. I really appreciate it. Great.
[00:43:51] Brad Kintzer: Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan and just so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you again.
[00:43:57] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks to our guest, Brad Kintzer. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to askattasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
