Hello everyone. Great news! Thanks to your contribution, we can now give our packaging phrases to print, so that soon you will receive chocolate bars with your own packaging phrase in them.

Below are the Top 10 Packaging Phrases you determined:

Michaela wins the $50 coupon, Charnell the $20 gift certificate, and Michaela Number 2 can play with $10 chocri credit. If you want to make sure your chocri order has the new packaging, wait for a blog post on the topic - I'll make sure I'll let you know when we have them set to go.

Thanks everyone for contributing - we had some great ideas and many votes. We at chocri are determined to be and do the best we can, and we can only do that with your help. Thank you!

Recently I received an email from a customer, saying the following: "I read on your site that you appreciate new input on ingredients for your chocolate bars. I think cardamom seeds would be perfect as a spice for your chocolate bars. Perhaps ground seeds would be best, as the taste of whole seeds could be too intense - I can imagine - but I'll let you decide on that."

We couldn't agree more! Cardamom is a wonderful sweet, pungent spice that literally adds some "heat" to your chocolate bar. As pointed out above, it is quite a "loud" spice, which is why we offer it ground so as not to overpower the chocolate and the other toppings. Cardamom is our Spice of the Month, so try it out while it lasts! Find it now in the Spices section when you create your personalized chocolate bar with chocri.

Traded already by the Ancient Greek, cardamom is a very "European" and "Asian" spice. While a lot of cardamom grows in India, hardly any is exported because the people there are so fond of it that they rather use it themselves. Arab cultures were equally excited about the spice, which was considered to have aphrodisiac qualities and was used in love potions.We recommend to pair cardamom with walnuts coffee, date pieces or, for the ultimate Indian chocri bar, with ginger.

What's on your chocolate bar?

I know that you like to get some insider information here on this blog, and I thought I'd introduce you to the two visionary chocri founders, Micha(el) and Franz. You can read my interviews with them here (Micha) and here (Franz), but here's my quick roundup about them.

Micha and Franz actually met in High School, and discovered soon that they shared something: the entrepreneurial bug. They both grew up not far from Berlin, Germany, and were young kids when the wall fell. Many others in their generation actually left that region of Germany - but not the two of them. Even before graduating from high school, they started their first venture together, and soon they were in the business of chocolate. Well, chocolate fountains and chocolate supplies for those fountains. One day Franz was desperately trying to come up for a great birthday gift for his girlfriend, and faced with lack of alternatives and time, he melted some of the chocolate fountain chocolate and decorated it with his girlfriends favorite toppings - the first chocri was born.

Word got around of this gift, and soon Franz's first buddy asked if he could have such a bar for his mom. Franz and Micha, gifted with lots of entrepreneurial spirit, saw a business opportunity. Personalized chocolate bars might sound like a wonderful, obviously great idea to us now, but keep in mind that back then, in 2008, nothing like this existed! Without any market research on a big scale, Micha and Franz bet on their idea to catch on - and boy, did they hit the nerve of time.

Franz and Micha are currently still in university, but that doesn't keep them from pressing on with chocri - as you all well know, chocri recently expanded to the US, and the UK is next. Germans are known for being quite risk averse, but the two chocri founders have a refreshingly healthy mix of daring new things, but also the amazing ability of constantly coming up with things that people might not have thought about yet themselves, but are enthusiastic about once they exist. Thanks to them, you can always expect chocri to keep innovating, to constantly improve, and to grow.

If you'd like to see Franz and Micha, check out our Youtube Channel for a video with the two.

*What would you like to know about the chocri founders? Comment, and I'll forward the question!

Happy Friday Chocriholics!

As always, we had some great ideas for chocolate bar names this week, and here are my five favorite chocolate bar names:

• Mine (Dark Chocolate with Blueberries, Coriander, Jalapeños, Goji Berries and Black Sesame)
  
• Cherry Blossom (Milk Chocolate with Sour Cherries, Coriander and Mini Flower Decoration)
  
• hazelalmoricecapcrunch (White Chocolate with Roasted Almonds, Hazelnut Brittle, Cappuccino Chocolate Drops, Rice Crispies in Chocolate Coating and Toffee)
  
• Good Night (Sleep Well) (Dark Chocolate with Organic Chamomile and Bourbon Vanilla)
• Eva's Scrumdiddlyuptious Chocolate Bar (Dark Chocolate with Marzipan Rose, Coconut Shavings, Marshmallow, Bourbon Vanilla and Orange)
  

Make your chocolate bar your own! Put your name on it!