If positive experiences are the best way to change behavior, then a unique Palo Alto business called The Chocolate Garage has found the ideal way to convince people to support sustainable food production: offer them tastes of ‘happy’ chocolate.
Tucked in a tiny space off Gilman Street in downtown Palo Alto, The Chocolate Garage lures people with free tastes of chocolate and once they fall in love with the yummy samples, educates them about how choosing sustainably grown chocolate can improve the lives of farmers in developing nations. Founder Sunita de Tourreil calls the product she sells at The Chocolate Garage, ‘happy chocolate’ because buying it creates positive changes for the farmers and eating it makes people feel, well, happy.
A former molecular biologist, Sunita spent years studying communicable diseases including mad cow disease before turning her attention to avoidable diseases that people face in the developing world such as diarrhea and malaria. In pursuit of this new passion, Sunita visited Ecuador and other countries that produce cacao beans to see if paying small farmers a higher price to produce quality cacao beans could be a powerful engine for increasing wages and improving health.
While still puzzling over how to turn this idea into a business, Sunita’s husband moved his organization, UnaMesa, into an office on Gilman Street that came with an oddball extra space too small for desks but perfect for…a chocolate tasting room. With little business experience but enough passion and energy to make up for it, Sunita opened the Chocolate Garage in the summer of 2010.
Taking advantage of her location just yards from the downtown Palo Alto Farmer’s Market, Sunita put out picnic tables in the courtyard outside the Chocolate Garage where people could gather and began circulating with dishes of chocolate to sample. Her warm personality and excitement about the origin and quality of her chocolate drew people from the courtyard into the Garage, where Sunita brought out bar after bar of small batch chocolate laced with flavors such as blood orange and sea salt.
With its intimate space that is perfect for building community between customers, the Chocolate Garage began to grow organically through word of mouth and four years later, it is thriving. Sunita has never done any advertising.
“Our business model is sort of bizarre,” Sunita admits. “It’s not easy to find The Chocolate Garage and we’re only open on Saturday mornings and Wednesday nights, but people in Palo Alto are open to crazy ideas and community-building, and that- along with our great products- keep them coming back to The Chocolate Garage.”
Sunita has used trial and error to develop a sustainable model that relies on two income streams: sales through The Chocolate Garage, and corporate chocolate tasting events.
Customers to The Chocolate Garage can buy bars one at a time or buy a membership through a prepaid chocolate ‘tab’ called Future Chocolate, which starts at $100 and can go as high as $500. Members get $2 off the cost of each bar they purchase, along with opportunities to sample small batch chocolates and other events exclusive for members. As the chocolate bars sold by The Chocolate Garage regularly run from $10-$15 for 2-3 ounces (a typical price for high quality chocolate), the discount is appealing for many customers.
At the corporate events, which take place two to three times a week, Sunita brings her excitement and knowledge about chocolate to create fun, educational teambuilding events for companies such as facebook, LinkedIn, VMWare and Google. These events help fund her core business and also give her new ways of spreading her mission to educate consumers about where their food comes from.
“The people who come into The Chocolate Garage often already understand the importance of supporting farmers,” Sunita explains, “They are like my choir.” And although the employees who attend one of her chocolate team building workshops may not know anything about sustainable farming, after hearing from Sunita and tasting her delicious offerings, many people become excited about buying high quality, ‘happy’ chocolate.
On a recent visit to the Chocolate Garage on a Saturday morning right after Halloween, Palo Alto Pulse found it buzzing with people despite the damp weather. Children were streaming in to trade in their mass produced Halloween candy for a free bar of small batch chocolate, demonstrating a remarkable preference for quality over quantity. And it was clear from talking to the regulars that a stop by the Chocolate Garage is a favorite part of their weekly visit to the Farmer’s Market.
“This place fits with the Farmer’s Market ethos,” one customer explained. “We’re here because we believe in supporting farmers and making sure we know where our food comes from.”
Another customer had Sunita’s chocolate tasting presentation as the centerpiece for her birthday party and mothers’ day celebration. “Everyone in my family loves coming here,” she said. “It’s so kid friendly and because I have the prepaid plan, I don’t even feel guilty getting more chocolate each week!”
As Sunita looks towards the future, she sees many ways that The Chocolate Garage can expand its reach and deepen its impact. One avenue she has been exploring involves buying entire batches of bars from new makers to help shore up their income streams. By working with high quality, small batch chocolate producers, she can buy the bars and sometimes even the beans, fund the production of the chocolate and then co-brand the bars with The Chocolate Garage.
Sunita is also considering other locations where she can spread the word about the importance of high quality chocolate and how it can help farmers. She does not envision ever producing (or shipping) chocolate herself, as the process is difficult and expensive, and there are many great producers with whom she can partner to create great products.
With two small children, one at Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto, Sunita is a working parent who juggles her family’s needs along with her growing business at The Chocolate Garage. But she brings her passion and commitment to all aspects of her life. As Sunita says on the company’s website, ‘My kids don’t yet know about “child slave labor” and “commodity cacao” or “crushing poverty”. Sadly, one day they will learn. And when they do, I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that I have made it my life’s work to change chocolate.”
You can find Sunita and her team of three part-time employees giving out samples of happy chocolate and spreading the word about sustainable cacao farming at 654 Gilman Street in downtown Palo Alto. The Chocolate Garage tasting room is open Saturdays 8am-1pm and Wednesdays 5pm-9pm. Each week features about six different types of chocolate to taste.
