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Peter Higgins | Chocxo
196 Plays2 years ago
Organic chocolate that’s ethically sourced is more rare than you might think. If you’re a chocolate enthusiast and interested in the intersection of gourmet taste, health, and sustainability in food production you’re going to love the next 29-minutes.
In this episode we hear from the President of Chocxo, Peter Higgins, as he talks about how his team is helping cacao farmers thrive and how they’re working towards being plastic neutral. The conversation also takes us down the path of organic farming practices, the low-sugar mojo we’re all craving, and how their chocolatiers are innovating some really delicious flavours.
Thanks for listening! This podcast is brought to you by www.ethicalfoodgroup.com.
Here’s some important links for all you diary-free fans out there:
Website & Store Locator:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ChocxoChocolatiers
Instagram:
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Transcript
Sustainable & Indulgent Chocolate
00:00:00
Speaker
This is aisle 42. We're diving back into the world of sustainable and indulgent chocolate, and here's a few reasons why. 90% of Canadians and Americans gift chocolate for Christmas. And get this, only 3% of the world's cacao production is certified organic. Oh boy.
Chauxo's Ethical Practices
00:00:26
Speaker
So I sat down for a chat with the president of Chauxo, Peter Higgins, to talk about a whole bunch of things, like how their team is helping farmers thrive and how they're working towards being plastic neutral. But we also talk about all things organic, low sugar, and how their chocolatiers are having so much fun, making all these delicious and seasonal flavors. This episode is for all you chocolate enthusiasts and anyone interested in the intersection of gourmet taste, health, and sustainability in food production.
00:00:55
Speaker
We all love a decadent treat and buying organic chocolate that's ethically sourced makes the future of food brighter and more delicious for everyone. You're going to enjoy this one. Here's Peter Higgins from Chauxo.
00:01:10
Speaker
Peter, I've tried your chocolate for the first time two years ago and it's become a staple in my home. My whole family loves it. In fact, one portion of chocolate is dessert after most meals. So thanks so much for making chocolate and for doing this interview.
00:01:26
Speaker
We love it. I love to hear that. Chocco is finding a way into your daily habits, right? It's something you can be proud of. So that's so cool. Love it. It is. And it's easy to share, too. Oh, my gosh. So easy. In fact, sometimes that's a bit of a problem. My daughter hands it out after school to all of her friends like, slow down, slow down.
00:01:45
Speaker
I'd say I'd encourage her to share the good news about Choc. So every chat, yeah. Smart young lady, it sounds like. That's right. She's doing what you wanted to do. Just, yeah, we'll have to see. I have to kind of curb her enthusiasm a little bit.
The Future of Ethical Groceries
00:01:59
Speaker
All right. I'm going to start you off here with a question about the future. If you were to imagine the perfect grocery store of the future, what would it look like?
00:02:09
Speaker
Great question. So I think it's a combination of foods that you can be proud of, you know, consuming yourself that fits with who you are in your day-to-day life in terms of food that you can be proud of putting into your body, right? Giving to your kids as you talked about, sharing it with others. And that's really where, you know what I think
00:02:34
Speaker
we're trying to fit in with Chocso, right? In terms of this, you're not compromising on taste. And that's a piece that we always talk about at Chocso, not compromising on taste, but it's something you'd be proud of sharing with your family. And because it's got this low sugar component and all organic, yet no compromise on the quality of the chocolate taste.
00:02:58
Speaker
Sounds like a great future. Really does. All right. So for those that don't know Chocso as well as I do, what do you guys make? And I'm most curious, what's your favorite product that you guys make? Well, I'm a true chocolate lover and have been for a long time. So I'm fortunate to be in the chocolate world for a long time.
00:03:20
Speaker
Chocso is, you know, we're super excited. We've got an amazing team of people that have created this, what we call truly indulgent chocolate, low in sugar, no artificial sugars, just a small amount of organic cane sugar and always organic. So this truly indulgent chocolate, low in sugar, always organic is what we're trying to create in Chocso. And this is better for you chocolate that
00:03:48
Speaker
is doesn't, that tastes amazing, but doesn't have to be filled with sugar to get there. And we developed that through the recipe, the roast, the source of the beans, which I'm happy to sort of expand on. But in its essence, it's a better for you chocolate that tastes totally indulgent and, and satisfies that chocolate craving that we all have, many of us have. I know I have.
00:04:12
Speaker
And what's your go to snack? What's, what's the chocso that's in the glove compartment or hiding in your, you probably have a lot of chocolate lying around. So I'm not, not what's in your office. Like what's at home, what's hiding out that you always go to. In my car at home, you know, if I'm having a snack after doing it right now, I'll tell you yesterday afternoon I'm in the car and needed a treat. I had a, uh, one of our coconut, uh, cups. And so this is an 85% dark chocolate.
00:04:39
Speaker
with a macaroon center, like a finely ground coconut with a little bit of desiccated coconut in the center at three grams of sugar per serving. And it's just all individually packaged as you know, Corwin. And so that was my treat yesterday. And that's often what I'll have.
00:04:59
Speaker
But people ask me, what is your favorite chocolate all the time? It changes all the time. And that's just the fact I get to be around chocolate. I can see the almond butter cup behind you. Depends on my mood. Yes, love it.
00:05:12
Speaker
almond butter cup, when I'm feeling a little bit of a nutty treat. Another one of my favorites is the toffee almond sea salt, just that lingering bit of sea salt at the end. So I'm a huge fan of all things chocolate and all things chocso, so it varies all the time, to be quite honest with you. Do you get a lot of Willy Wonka references? I have to ask. Oh yeah, people, Willy Wonka and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of the best movies. I love it, right?
00:05:41
Speaker
I like all versions of it. Some people like, do you like the original? Do you like the newer, the Johnny Deaf one? I'm a fan. And being the chocolate world for a few years here, yeah, I get references all the time. The fact that I'm, you know, and you've met me, I'm not an oompa loompa, Carl, and I'm two meters tall, right? Six foot six. And so I always joke that, you know, chocolate makes you grow taller, right? Because I certainly eat a lot of chocolate.
00:06:06
Speaker
That's an interesting claim. You should maybe put that on pack at one point and see how that fares for you. Yes, yes. That's not a bad idea. All things chocolate.
Supporting Farming Communities
00:06:16
Speaker
Chuxo claims 100% sustainable chocolate. What does that mean?
00:06:21
Speaker
So what we do in terms of our sustainability claims, there's a couple of different avenues that we look at with regards to sustainability. One is around our cocoa sustainability and our supply chain around cocoa. And the other is around what we're doing around our packaging sustainability side.
00:06:41
Speaker
And on the Cocos sustainability side, what we try to do is we work with suppliers that will engage and work with their farming partners as true partners. And I'll give you an example of one that we work with recently in South America. All of our cocoa from Chauxo comes from either Peru or Dominican Republic. And I'll give you an example. It's all organic.
00:07:09
Speaker
We're working with a farming community in Peru recently who didn't have running water into their farm and so into their farming community.
00:07:22
Speaker
And so there was, they had to walk a few kilometers away to get the water. So what we did was we put piping in from a pump station at the river nearby the community. This community of about a thousand people now has piped water into the community.
00:07:40
Speaker
And it makes a big difference in those communities that didn't have access to that. As you know, access to clean water is such an important sort of something we take for granted, but where we buy cocoa from these developing communities, we want to get back and make sure that we're doing our part to make sure their communities can grow and get stronger as a result of our relationship and our buying cocoa with them.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah. The wellbeing of the farmers is such a critical piece to this supply, you know, this value chain that comes in into your business. When you guys look at things like fair compensation and labor practices, what are some of the areas that you guys are leaning into to help improve those conditions for farmers? Yeah. And so we'll do a variety of things in terms of, you know, ultimately,
00:08:32
Speaker
trying to help them with their productivity in those communities can help increase their amounts, the amounts of their income coming in. Because fundamentally, if they're finding better ways to farm and more efficient ways to farm, they're getting more yield out of their trees and their crops, and they're getting more income. So that's one example.
00:08:54
Speaker
Another example is with our organic, because we're buying all our organic product, there is a premium paid for all of the organic materials that helps the farming communities and their wages, they'll get paid a higher amount because of that. So those are a couple of examples of how we try to engage with our farming partners right down to that level.
00:09:19
Speaker
How hard is that when it comes to sourcing sustainable cocoa? Is that a difficult thing? Is that like, oh, you just sort of turn left at the fork of the road and it's right there? Or is it sort of a constant battle, constant challenge for your team? Yeah. I mean, I think it's definitely a choice, how you want to engage in
00:09:40
Speaker
where you want to get involved with that and there's various levels. So we buy our beans that I talked about for Chocso from Peru and Dominican Republic, but we work with different suppliers that will actually, according to our recipes, make those chocolate and that Couverture. And so the various suppliers will have different programs of how you can help those communities. So there is a specific choice depending on who you're working with, but the,
00:10:09
Speaker
raw material side of the cocoa has really developed over the last several years. And so there are a variety of programs, a variety of examples of how you can make sure that that's coming to life in those farming communities. So yeah, it's a focused choice and it's a decision of how we do that. And it's just something we take great pride in.
Plastic Neutrality Initiatives
00:10:35
Speaker
You guys have a plastic neutral approach. You mentioned packaging earlier. For those that aren't familiar with the brand, there are individually wrapped chocolate portions that come in a bag. From the consumer side, often when you buy pouches of things like standing pouches of product,
00:10:54
Speaker
You know, maybe some bits on top look pretty good, but as you kind of get halfway through a bag of whatever it is, it's like things are destroyed and smashed and crumbly and whatever. So there's a lot of upsides to having these individual portions. But then, of course, there's the plastics and sort of the packaging challenge. So how are you guys tackling that piece of the puzzle and trying to decrease your impact on the environment?
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's a very important topic as well. And one where because we believe in the individual packaging because it's really a great, our customers have said they take great use of that because they can have one snack after dinner. They can share it with their child's lunch or they can take it on their own lunch or an afternoon snack and put it in your purse. And so it doesn't melt as easily. It doesn't make a mess of that. At the same time,
00:11:48
Speaker
sort of we're trying to figure out how do we engage around long-term compostability of the packaging and because in the systems how we manufacture I mean we take the greatest highest quality chocolate but we produce that at a very efficient pace so we put a lot of investment into our factory operations here in Delta
00:12:12
Speaker
where I'm at today at our factory. And so because of that, the road to compostability with that speed and efficiency we produce at isn't as quick. And so we're working with our suppliers all the time to figure out how can we get to full compostability.
00:12:29
Speaker
In the meantime, we don't want to just wait and so we use a large amount of PCR post-consumer recyclable plastics in our plastic, as well as what we've decided to do as we continue to research this road to compostability.
00:12:46
Speaker
We've engaged with the company called repurpose it's a pretty exciting company that i discovered maybe a year ago or so we've engaged with them on a program called plastic neutral.
00:13:00
Speaker
And so what that is, while we're still using plastics in the environment, we will offset it, offset the amount of plastics that we're using in our production and with our customers' products to package the chocolate. And with the investment we make with Repurpose, they work with different communities around the world to remove plastic out of the environment.
00:13:23
Speaker
So, example, plastic out of specific waterways. An example is a community in India where there's a tremendous amount of plastic pollution in the waterways. And so this investment is removing that. And so the equal amount of plastic that is consumed in Choxo products that's used in that is also removed out of the waterways with this repurpose program.
00:13:49
Speaker
It's not the complete long-term solution, but it's an important step on the process down the road of getting towards a full-composed ability plastic or full-composed ability packaging, I should say. Does that make sense?
00:14:04
Speaker
It does. It does. And you know, the, I think one of the challenges in sustainability is that, you know, not every brand can do everything all at the same time, all at once to address some of these concerns, but that, especially the brands that are deeply committed to always growing, always progressing down a better and better path for the environment. I mean, these are values that are important. So it's, it's cool to see and hear how you guys are leaning into some of the hard places of the business for sure.
00:14:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, and it's really important. It goes to the culture of who we are. I mean, we're, you know, as much as we talk about loving chocolate and you hear my passion, you know, my passion around chocolate and the creation of what we do, the passion around our teams as well. And just, we have an amazing group of people that is, that we make chocolates for our customers and make sure customers are thrilled. And it's this passion for doing better.
00:14:58
Speaker
and just better period, whether it's in the cocoa supply chain or the plastics packaging side and how do we get better in that. So those are sort of three sort of passions that we have, the chocolate, the people, and just doing better for the environment and that we try to get better at every day. We don't profess to be perfect.
00:15:20
Speaker
And efficiency, too. I've seen your operation in real life. I've looked through the window and seen all the equipment, all the innovation, the technology, and what looks to be a very efficient system. And there can be a significant reduction of uses of energy, of waste, where things are really tightly managed and really carefully considered. There's a lot of upside to that level of technology going into the making of such beautiful chocolate.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yes, we're something we're proud of, this combination of this chocolate excellence and the efficiency because we want to make sure it's of great value. Our customers find great value when they buy it, right? So that's that marriage that we try to match.
00:16:07
Speaker
And you mentioned your chocolate factory in Delta, British Columbia, but your product is sold all throughout North America, maybe even beyond.
Global Market Expansion
00:16:17
Speaker
I feel like when I see no matter where I'm traveling or where I'm shopping, Chauxo has usually a very notable presence. There's a lot of shelf space given to it or display space. Is it growing fast beyond North America? Where is your brand going?
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah, we've been very fortunate to get great response from our customers. And I think it's this marriage of this chocolate craving. Chocolate's the most crazy food in the world, but yet we can make it truly indulgent in taste without being filled with sugar. And this is where this success is coming from. And we're very fortunate that we've seen that across Canada. You know, the team, we all work hard for that. In the US, we're continuing to sort of grow and get more national distribution in the US.
00:17:03
Speaker
In addition to that, you know, you asked outside of, you know, the US and Canada. I mean, we've just launched in the last year in Japan, Costco Japan. So we're proud of that. We've got some business now happening in Singapore.
00:17:19
Speaker
Mexico certainly, and we've been talking to some opportunities in the Emirates as well. So a variety of places, but really our focus is really continuing to sort of build in Canada and our distribution, and then build in the US. Lots of opportunities still in terms of the mainstream chocolate world, and then this Better For You chocolate world that we're
00:17:44
Speaker
trying to be an important pioneer of and just marriage that, you know, better free chocolate can taste amazing. That's what we're trying to find this fit for. I love it. I remember at one point, I feel like there was maybe was on the package or whatever, but it talked about your chocolate needed to be in a cool place or in the fridge. Is that still the case or talking about cold storage a little bit? Because it's not merchandised in a cold section of the grocery store, but I used to see that.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, and it's and it's one of those things. So yeah, being the chocolate world, people ask, can you can you put it in a fridge and you can do that. So although we we absolutely display it in the stores and it's and it's fine at that.
00:18:29
Speaker
at that level. A lot of people, when they buy it from the store, they'll eat as fast as they can. They're giving it to their friends and their family and eating themselves. But you know what? Sometimes people will say, can I store it in the cooler? And when you store it in a cooler environment, like in a refrigerator, it does just extend that life of that product, right? The one piece you want to be aware of when you pull it out, if you're pulling it out from a refrigerator,
00:18:54
Speaker
into a really warm environment, you can just like anything, you could get connotation, but typically with the packaging, the way it is, you'll get that connotation on the outside of the package. Or you're pulling out one piece and eating it soon thereafter. So yeah, chocolate can absolutely be put in the refrigerator, and it does help just maintain the freshness of it for a little bit longer, but that's not always the case.
00:19:21
Speaker
We also get the question of in the summertime, and we don't have to worry about it yet today because it's getting a little cooler out here in Vancouver and Delta right now, but in the summertime, yeah, if it gets above 24 degrees Celsius, you're going to start to see that melt, and then that's not the ideal condition for eating chocolate.
00:19:40
Speaker
Well, obviously speaks to the quality because there's plenty of chocolate out there that can live in your cupboard for a long time and not suffer at all. So that, that speaks to what's inside for sure. Yeah. Yeah. We don't use, we don't use artificial preservatives in our chocolate. So yeah, I mean, if you're not eating it right away, you can't put it in your fridge. It'll last a little longer. That's awesome. Well, where can listeners find chauxo and where can they learn more?
00:20:07
Speaker
So, I mean, definitely you can learn more on our website, chocso.com. Follow any of our social channels and you can get new information, new innovation that's happening. I'll tell you maybe in a second about some of our new innovations. Please do. Yes. A sneak peek, right?
00:20:29
Speaker
But you know what, we're proud to be from Costco. You'll see us at Costco's across Canada. You'll see us from Whole Foods to Safeway to Thrifties to Walmart. Proud to be in many independent grocers across BC and Canada.
00:20:48
Speaker
from Metro to Loggos to Loblaws, you name it. So we're proud to get some great distribution. And as you said earlier, some great displays that are happening in the many stores. Love it. Okay, so what's coming down the pike? What is your chocolate team working on that you're allowed to say, of course?
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, let me think about that. People always ask, how do you come up with new chocolates? It is one of the most fun parts of our job. I think I might have told you, but we have two chocolatiers, full-time chocolatiers to work for us. Stephanie, as an example, is a classically trained chocolatier from France originally. She's worked in and around Vancouver at different chocolatiers for
00:21:39
Speaker
a better part of 10 years and joined our team maybe last year. And so has been really a great part of the team and inspiring us in trading new flavors. My original background from way back is a food scientist. So the innovation side and that creation of new products is something that I love about what I do as well.
00:21:59
Speaker
So, you know, in the last year, the coconut cup, I mentioned earlier the 85% coconut cup, we just launched that in the last year, tremendously successful.
New Flavors & Seasonal Successes
00:22:09
Speaker
And it's pretty much rose right away to our top item. People still love the almond butter, the peanut butter and the coconut almond.
00:22:19
Speaker
I grew up eating those chocolate covered mounds of coconut when I was a kid. My dad and I, we just loved those things. So coconut and dark chocolate are always a go-to. Yeah. And it's amazing. You just have to try it out once and people go, oh my gosh, this is amazing. So that's been one of our newest innovations. And then another one, the toffee almond sea salt that we launched just in the spring.
00:22:44
Speaker
It feels like we've had it for longer, but it just launched in the spring and we're starting to get distribution in more places. That's been incredibly popular. That's really unique for when because, and this is something we developed through the innovation team. It's a 69% dark chocolate, but it's also has some milk chocolate in it.
00:23:03
Speaker
It's very unique to have a dark milk with that high of cocoa content. What that does is it gives you a little bit of a caramelized note when you eat that chocolate, the Couverture as well. Then what we've added to it is a little bit of organic toffee, a little bit of almond, and it's got this hint of sea salt finish at the end. You've got this wonderful combination and people ask, how do you come up with that the first time? We try iteration after iteration after
00:23:33
Speaker
after iteration, quite frankly. And so we'll try that with a 75%, we'll try that with a 72, varying amounts of toffee, you know, because we want all of these, we want this symphony of flavors, right? We want this beautiful combination instead of just heavy chocolate. And so the team, there's a few of us here that will try these and we'll tweak these recipes all the time and we'll have them in a boardroom of,
00:24:03
Speaker
20 different chocolates at a time and we'll be tasting it to see what are the right combinations of flavors and what is the most mainstream sort of successful approach. So it's a little bit of an insight to how we do that. We'll just line them up on the table and sometimes we'll have, I say, 20 chocolates in an hour and a half sitting and for me personally, I can't get enough, right? So I love that part of what we do, right?
00:24:29
Speaker
It's almost like a chocolate sommelier. Like if you could tell the difference between 69% and 73%, like, oh my gosh, I would never be able to be like tastes good. This one, this one, I would just, I would approve them all. And then you guys don't hire me. Please don't hire me.
00:24:45
Speaker
Yeah, but no, it really is. And as I say, we bring our chocolate, our beans in from Peru and Dominican Republic, which have a very different flavor profile from different beans sourced from different areas of the world. So most of the world's cocoa beans come from West Africa. It's typically a more monotone,
00:25:05
Speaker
can be a little bit more earthy flavor versus the South American beans, like an example, Peru, it's a little bit more naturally fruity, a little bit more flavorful. So you don't have to roast it quite as much. So you get this beautifully flavored couverture without having to add a tremendous amount of sugar. We just add a hint of organic cane sugar to balance that flavor out. And you get to use words like couverture. That's a smarty pants word, man.
00:25:35
Speaker
And you guys have a seasonal one, um, like a holiday, like a Christmas kind of bent, don't you? Yeah. So, and that's part of the new innovation. So we've got just launching out right now and you'll start to see that in some of the, some of the stores right now and more as November, the calendar turns to November.
00:25:53
Speaker
We've got two items there. One is a, really it's a low sugar version of peppermint bark is the way I'm gonna describe it. So first one is a cup that has got a peppermint, it's a peppermint cup. And so it's got a soft center with just a little bit of peppermint on top and mint flavor. It's fantastic. Four grams of sugar per serving. So you got this adult low sugar version of a peppermint bark.
00:26:20
Speaker
And the second one we've got, we've got two seasonal Christmas holiday items, is a peppermint cookie snap, cookie crunch. And so this one has a little bit of candy cane in it. It has a 69% dark milk again, as well it has a small amount of organic gluten-free cookie. And it's got this wonderful combination of textures as well as this fresh mint taste.
00:26:48
Speaker
I'm going to brag for a second that one there.
00:26:52
Speaker
We were very fortunate to win the Nextee Award at the Expo East event that happened in September. So there's a few hundred people that would apply for these Nextee Awards. And we were very fortunate to win Best New Dessert at all of the, between all the competition at the Nextee, at the Expo East event, the natural food show. So. That's like the winning an Oscar.
00:27:19
Speaker
really was. The team that was there said there was a bunch of people coming up with drums and like horns and they came up behind them and a big sign came up and, congratulations Chokso, you won the prize for the XD. So that's a big deal in the industry, as you know, to win the XD. So we're very proud of that.
00:27:38
Speaker
I love it, it's so good. Peter, thanks for doing this. Thanks for making and your team making such beautiful chocolate and for doing everything you're doing for the planet and for the communities that grow your chocolate. And it's a wonderful brand and I love seeing you guys continue to grow. Thank you so much, Corwin. Really appreciate your support. And yeah, we're gonna keep innovating. We've got some other sneak peeks that we can talk about in the next podcast and you'll see that coming soon. So thanks so much, really appreciate it.
00:28:08
Speaker
Sounds good, rock on.
Gratitude & Closing Remarks
00:28:11
Speaker
And that's a wrap on this episode and for the year. 2023 is now in the books for aisle 42. Thanks for listening and for everyone who shared a star rating and review on Apple or Spotify and signed up at aisle42podcast.com. I'm super grateful for your support. This podcast is proudly brought to you by Ethical Food Group and I'm Corwin Hebert. I'll see you in the future.
00:28:47
Speaker
you