Today was amazing! As a chocolate lover the tasting tour at Sibö was truly one of a kind. Our tour guide walked us through the history of chocolate and with each period we tried a different version of chocolate that reflected its evolution. He highlighted the different processes used to produce a great piece of chocolate. There are surprisingly many parallels between the process of chocolate and coffee. Chocolate is a stimulant and was used as a source of energy before coffee became popular. The process for chocolate starts on the tree in a cocoa pod. These pods are broken open to extract the beans covered in a sweet pulp. The beans are put into a large box where they are fermented and cooked in their own juices. After 10 days they are taken out and dried in the sun for a few more days. They are then roasted and grinded into a paste. At this point a chocolatier can decide what they want to add to their cocoa to make the perfect chocolate. The coffee bean process includes many of the same steps such as the fermentation, drying and roasting all to ensure a rich coffee taste. The chocolate process replicates this to also ensure a consistent, quality taste. Although with such a complex process there are many challenges and risks. One of the largest challenges is finding a cocoa farm that doesn’t use child labor or any unpaid labor. Many of the large companies choose these farms since they offer some of the cheapest cocoa on the market. Sibö wants to avoid this and only sources its cocoa from 3 local farms in Costa Rica. They make sure these farms are paying their laborers a living wage and use sustainable practices. Sustainability is Sibö’s main goal for their chocolate and their products truly represent that. The next challenge we learned about was the packaging for their chocolates. Many companies use plastic and other harmful materials in their packaging, but Sibö wanted to avoid this. They found that they can use one of the waste products from the chocolate production to make paper. They use the coco husk to make most of their packaging which is eliminating a lot of the single use plastics. The biggest risk with following these practices is that the inputs are far more expensive. The consumer will have to pay a premium for their product now to enjoy it. To sustain such high costs Sibö needed to find their target audience, which is the younger generation. Through market research they found that we align most with their mission and are willing to pay more for their products. I think they were right as everyone on the tour bought something at the gift shop after. This helps Sibö compete with the bigger brands like Britt. Now they have been able to expand to two shops, an online store, and are still exporting their chocolate to other stores all over.