New Years Eve is a great opportunity to look back, and a lot of exciting things happened for chocri in 2009.

Below are a few of the milestones for chocri in the past year, with a special focus on those that matter for the US:

• In February, chocri redesigned it's homepage
  
• In March, chocri expanded its production to keep up with the growing demand
  
• In April, we started planning the expansion to the US and conducted some market research to learn what Americans want ;)
  
• August, chocri came on Facebook, and the first US tastings took place in Chicago and New York
• chocri celebrated it's first birthday in September
  
• In October: chocri wins the Wirtschaftswoche Gründerpreis, the first US Reviews of chocri appear
  
• In November, we launch our Facebook Quiz in German and English,and Micha is chosen as one of the top 30 student entrepreneurs on the planet
  
• Finally, a lot happened this past month, December: Our chocri Facebook App launched worldwide, the chocolate club launches in Germany - just in time because in mid December, chocri sells out. We reached a new milestone in donating to charity: To date, more than $30,000 were donated!

What an exciting year, and how exciting 2010 will be! How was your 2009?

Chocri wishes you an amazing and fantastic celebration tonight. Celebrate who you are and how much you've achieved in 2009! We'll toast to you tonight - thank you for your support!

We've discussed "Health and Chocolate" on this blog before, but today let's zoom in on particularly antioxidants in chocolate.

First of all, we need to distinguish between chocolate and cocoa. Really, cocoa is the happy-making "food of the goods", so the effects described below are stronger with dark chocolate, and evaporate with white chocolate. Here's the good news though: Cocoa contains more antioxidants than red wine, or green or black tea.

What are antioxidants? As the word itself says, they are anti- oxidation, they are anti- a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals. Don't get me wrong- oxidation is not by itself a bad thing, it is in fact necessary for survival. However, if a body lacks antioxidants, too many free radicals are produced, and those can be the beginning of cancer. Antioxidants are used to treat brain injuries, and, as mentioned, are believed to prevent cancer-related free radicals. During physical exercise, oxygen intake increases, hence you should also consume more antioxidants.

Antioxidants should, like everything, be "enjoyed" in moderation. And enjoyable it is - a famous antioxidant for example is Vitamin C, to be found in many fruit and vegetables. Cocoa is rich in a so-called "polyphenol antioxidant": flavonoid. Scientists discovered that the level of antioxidants in cocoa is almost twice that of red wine, two to three times that of green tea or and four times that of black tea (Source).

What this means for you? Chocolate is not only good for your happiness-level, it's also good for your antioxidant level! :)

Apparently you guys (and ladies) liked my blog post with the chocri bar names - hey, I'm happy to give you another one! In fact, this is an easy task, for the typical chocri consumer is very creative! It was no problem at all to find more funny, inspiring and beautiful chocolate bar names. Here's what I found:

• Chill Chocolate (I find chocolate very relaxing, yes)
  
• Oh, Behave! (That's a challenge - first ordering chocolate and then telling yourself not to eat it? ;))
  
• Volkers Daydream (*... is becoming reality!)
  
• Muesligirly (me too, me too!)
  
• Alexa's Figure Killer (nah, not really, just enjoy every bit of it slowly and you'll be fine)
  
• Dark Secret (Dark chocolate, positively, but don't keep us a secret! Puhleaze!)
  
• Sweet, white snow (hey, if snow was as good as this bar, I'd be rolling out there!)
  
• Melting Sugar (mmm)
  
• Chocolate Lady (would love to meet the recipient of that bar!)
  
• Exclusively Mommy's Chocolate (Ah, common, Mommy will share, won't she? ... She won't? Oh..)
  
• Special Katja Edition (That's right!)
  
• Cheez Checker Choki (Checker - cool. Choki - cool. Cheese? - super cool. Wait, really?)
  

Amazingly, Germans often choose English names, too! From "Hot Vanilla Kiss" to "Chill Chocolate", our German customers skip the German. Also, I've noticed that a lot of bars had the word "dream" in their name. Totally understandable, those bars are real dreams!

Another "trend" in the chocri bar naming is the combination of topping names to "create" a new word - what can we say, chocri fans are just so creative! Also, but less surprising, a lot of the bars have cute nicknames in them.

What would you name your chocolate bar?

p.s. If you gave your bar a funny name on our Facebook app, send me a picture of it at carmen@chocri.com.

Welcome back everyone!

Hopefully you had a great, relaxing time over the holidays. Did you send friends and loved ones a virtual, customized chocolate bar? Whether you've been waiting to try it out, or maybe you have sent some virtual chocri bars already - the Facebook App just got better! We updated our toppings in the App and there are now more than 100 toppings available! Does anyone want to calculate how many possibilities that allows for? Because I don't... ;)

From the data I've seen coming in through Facebook, you all really like the App! That's awesome. Please don't hesitate to send us feedback of any sorts. Apparently, the chocri application is a little slow from time to time - we have it on a really fast server, hopefully that will make the experience less patience-demanding. I'm sure you all know from Farmville that Facebook just tend to be slow sometimes...

So, feel free to try out the new toppings, like apple bits and organic chamomile, - all yours, all free, and a nice way to show someone you care while having fun!

Check out the new toppings in the chocri Facebook Application

in Germany, people celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December, hence today was the last day for chocri to make customized chocolate bars for the holidays. Yes, that's right - chocri is hard at work until the last day before Christmas!

The very last bar with the wonderful destination of becoming a christmas gift was "Santa's Favorite", a creation recommended by chocri. Here a picture of the last bar being packaged:

An amazing chocolate bar with cinnamon, roasted almonds and toffee, heavily preferred by Santa over the common choice of cookies underneath the Christmas tree. Not only Santa loves it, the whole family does! With it's golden sparkles, it makes for an extra happy Christmas Eve.

Joy, peace and chocolate for everyone!

p.s. If you want to gift someone a customized chocolate bar for the holidays, try out our Facebook application and gift a virtual chocri bar :)

We have great news! We've been working on this for a while, and finally were able to launch:

The chocri Chocolate Gift Facebook Application!

With our Facebook app, you can design your own virtual chocolate bar similarly to how you will be able to design your own real chocolate bar on our website. You can give it a name, and send it to up to 16 friends. You can also invite friends as you wish (and we will be grateful if you help us spread the word).

Here's some additional sweetness: If you receive 50 virtual chocri bars, send us a note, and you get a real chocolate bar from us for free.

What are you waiting for? Design your virtual chocri bar now!

p.s. Our own developers were busy designing the English chocri website, so we outsourced the App - if you have any feedback, please send away :)

A while ago, I noticed that there are a lot of success stories about startups taking on the adventure of mass customization, but that some of the big companies ceased their mass customization efforts.

Levi's used to offer custom jeans - no more.
Land's End allowed you to design your own clothing - merely dress shirts are offered tucked away into a corner of their website.
General Mills still owns the domain mycereal.com - yet it only redirects you to their corporate homepage. What happened?

I decided to ask an authority on the subject - Professor Frank Piller (also see his blog on mass customization here).

He was so kind to send me a paper from 2005^, where he discusses exactly what I've been wondering about. Below my summary of his take on why big firms have a disadvantage at mass customization:

Basically, Prof. Piller states that firms have to do two things in order to enable mass customization:

• A: Companies have to achieve flexibility in their production of goods
• B: Companies have to create an interaction system to learn about the preferences of their customers

Many big companies benefit from immense scale, and it is challenging to allow mass production to churn out billions of different products in addition to the ongoing mass business. This requires change management capabilities and an agreement throughout the organization that few big companies can achieve - it is a lot riskier than betting on another mass product!

When was the last time you engaged in a real dialogue with a mass producer? These companies have too many customers to start a real interaction process. I believe that in order to allow your customers to co-design a product, you need to (1) understand their general preferences to determine which modules you offer as customization options, and (2) you need to provide a toolkit to let your customers customize your product. Many big companies are not used to being this close to their customer without a market research firm or an advertising agency in between. Again, small and agile startups in their respective niches have an advantage.

It seems to me that social media might be a remedy to this problem. Also, we shouldn't ignore that there are success stories, such as NikeID!

What do you think - do startups have an advantage in the mass customization arena?

^ Frank Piller (2005): "Mass Customization: Reflections on the State of the Concept", The International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems, 16, 313–334

As you well know, we (will) give you the opportunity to give your chocolate bar creation a name. Since we already sell customized chocolate bars in Germany, I went back and looked up some funny names:

• The Lovemix
  
• My Crazy Chocolate
  
• Everything My Fat Darling Loves (Because I Love It)
  
• Alexander the Great
  
• Daddy's Nut Dream
  

I found all these names in just the bar names of one day! Which, by the way, it's pretty impressive to scroll through the orders of one whole day in Germany, even though chocri is sold out for the Holidays. Takes a looong time.

What would you name your chocolate bar?

After cocoa came to Europe, it took centuries until actual "chocolate" as we know it today was made out of it. For a long time, only the noble and aristocrats were able to afford to drink chocolate. In the 17th and 18th century, so-called "chocolate houses" made chocolate accessible for the well-off middle class. The expensive and fashionable beverage was served there as a drink during events and receptions.

The most famous chocolate house was "White's Chocolate House" in London. The young nobles who came here were soon known for their betting habits. In many ways, chocolate houses were like clubs and lounges nowadays: People had to pay a cover charge to get in, (chocolate) drinks were expensive and heavily taxed, and guests were entertained with card games or other. It was not uncommon for some wine or other liquor to be mixed in with the chocolate drinks, which were served by women called "Chocolate Girls". As you can imagine, chocolate houses were quite merry places, some more civilized than others.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Even today, chocolate has preserved much of its exclusivity, and contributes to the merriness of people, don't you agree? :)

In our Toppings List, some of the toppings don't have pictures yet (they're a little shy...), so I wanted to showcase four of them today... with a picture:

A delightful meeting of Mini Marshmallows, Toffee, Rice Crispies in Chocolate Coating, and Nougat Pieces.

Here in the US, we all know the Mini Marshmallows that taste oh-so-good in your hot chocolate (or just by themselves!). In Germany however, these caused a stir, since all the Marshmallows we Germans are accustomed to are the big ones, that we like to put on a stick and roast over a fire. Our Marshmallows are fluffy and add a very different experience to the otherwise snappy chocolate.

Toffee is a buttery version of caramel. Caramel itself is nothing else but sugar heated slowly to 340°F. That's pretty hot, as everyone knows who tried this at home before and burned their fingers because the caramel smells so tasty. But don't worry - the toffee pieces on your chocolate will have cooled down by the time you get them. Although your chocolate bar will still be "hot", only in a different sense.

We had Rice Crispies (and with picture) all along, because they look pretty and add crunchiness to your bar. We doubled up on the experience: Rice crispies IN chocolate ON chocolate. :)

Finally, Nougat was a challenge, since we can't put anything on a chocolate bar that wouldn't stay in shape on its way to you. Luckily, we found these pretty little pieces who make chocolate lovers happy with their aroma of nuts that melts in your mouth.

Today, don't stay here on the blog (although we love to have you) - go to Facebook and vote on your favorite fan picture!

We've asked our German fans to take their chocri bars and take pictures of them. We have everything from a chocri mosaic to a little chocri personality... so get your eyecandy on Facebook today:

Vote on the picture you love most by using the "like" button - that's it. The best photo artist takes home a chocri clothing article (t-shirt, apron...) and a big, fat package of chocri bars (albeit, that's only for the Germans).

Have fun! Now go :)

We want you to know who is making your chocolate to perfection, hence this blog series where I introduce someone from the chocri team by asking them weird questions. To read about all the people behind chocri, click on the "people" category in the navigation, or just here.
Today, I'm presenting you: Franz, our co-founder

Franz Duge

• What was your last chocri creation?
  "Our recommended chocri creation "Santa's Favorite": Milk chocolate with cinnamon, real gold flakes, roasted almonds and toffee."

• Dark, milk or white chocolate?
  "Dark, although sometimes milk, too"

• Where are you from?
  "I was born in Berlin, and moved to the suburbs when I was 10. It was quite nice there, too."

• What do you study?
  "At the moment I'm still studying engineering with a business twist, but will change my major to business. Mechanical Engineering is too technical."

• What's the favorite part of your job?
  "To work with our employees. When I'm in the office on weekends by myself, it's definitely not as much fun - although I get more done :)"

• What do you want to be when you grow up?
  I'd really like to be a globetrotter. [comment from the interviewer: As chocri is expanding to all these countries, you will have to be one. :) Good news for chocri!]"

• Do you type with 10 fingers?
  "Maybe with four or five? ;)"

• What would you like to customize but you can't yet?
  "There's lots of stuff. i think I have to try some of the recent advancements in mass customization first before I wish for any new ones!"

• The coolest thing about chocri?
  "We have a very cool relationship with our employees! Oh, and being an "owner of a chocolate company" usually goes down well with the ladies ;)"

• The most annoying thing about chocri?
  "Everyone orders last minute, e.g. just before the Holidays. We don't just grab something off a shelf, we make it, so that can be a little bit stressful sometimes"

• What is the one thing that you are most proud of?
  "Tough question. I'm proud we made chocri so successful that we were able to collect more than 23,000 Euro in unison with our customers to donate to DIV Kinder [the charity organization that supports children on the Ivory Coast]"

Thanks for the interview Franz!

Hi there,

Happy Friday first of all! We've been writing this blog for 5 months now, so it's time for a little round-up of some of our most popular posts:

Posts that Introduce chocri

In "About chocri", chocri is introduced in general. In the post "7 ways to customize your chocri" we summarize the endless possibilities of creating your very own chocolate bar.

Posts on the topic of mass customization

Mass Customization is a surging trend, and we are doing our part to give more control to the consumer! One of our popular posts is a general article on the topic: "So What Is this Mass Customization Thing?", and then there's one on "Food Mass Customization" in particular.

chocri and Social Responsibility

Read our blog post on how we're helping out in the country that our cocoa beans are from in this post: "Helping Out At the Ivory Coast Not Only During the Holidays"

Just for fun

The title says it all: "Forget Love, I'd Rather Fall in Chocolate" :))

Thanks for reading!
One month from now we will open our website to everyone! Customized chocolate bars for America :)

As you well know, with chocri you can design your own chocolate bars. However, with more than 10 billion possibilities, it's easy to be overwhelmed with choice. That is why we have (in Germany) and will have (in the US) recommended, popular and recent creations on our website.

Today, I'd like to introduce you two three of our recommended creations:

Top 5 In One:

Simply the best! Our 5 most wanted toppings on our most popular chocolate base. You can’t go wrong with this one.

Ultimate Nut Bar:

A chocolate bar fully packed with a selection of the most delicious nuts. The native pecan, the European walnut, and the queen of nuts: giant macadamia. Topped off with crunchy hazelnut brittle. You’ll go nuts!

Summer Fever:

It’s summer? Midsummer? It hasn’t been summer for way too long? One way or the other – this bar creates good vibes with refreshing toppings.

Mhm, yummy :)

p.s. We also have a blog post Recommended Chocolate Bars I if you want more!

Thanks for all of you who already signed up! If you leave us your email on the left, we'll send you the passcode to our Invitation-Only Launch :)

Yay - Your chocri team

Big news from the other side of the Atlantic: chocri was so popular as a gift for the holidays, that chocri actually sold out this weekend! Despite a good number of full-time and temporary employees, 24/7 production and lots of hard work put in by everyone - chocri can't keep up with the orders! What love from our fans!

One of the last bars* that was ordered: Dark chocolate with walnuts. The creator called it: "Chocolate makes happy!". True words!

Luckily, there are still alternatives in Germany: Gift Coupons and something new: a Chocolate Club, with two "bars of the month" for subscribers. More about that later.

So much from Germany!

• the very last bar was "Santa's Favorite", which is one of our recommendations.

So when we say "customized chocolate bars", what does that mean? I hope I didn't forget one, but I counted seven ways to customize your chocolate bar:

Customize the Name of Your Chocolate Bar

This is called personalization - make the bar unmistakably yours by putting your name on it. Or call it something funny or cute, like Kid's Delight, Fred or Sweet & Salty as Lisa did in her recent blog post in her blog "Stop and Smell the Chocolates". What would you name your bar?

Customize the Toppings on Your Chocolate Bar

This is of course the most important one: With your choice of a base chocolate and over 90 toppings, you can design 10 billion chocolate bars and each and every one will be unique! (Gee, who's going to eat all of those?)

Customize the Packaging as an Individual

Coming Soon: We are currently working on "theme packagings", so that you will have a choice between the standard red packagings and say a packaging for the holidays. Or for Valentine's Day.

Customize the Packaging as a Company

Should you order more than 50 bars (stores and corporations do that), we can create a custom packaging completely in your corporate design. That comes with a small additional fee.

Customize Your Chocolate with an Edible Image/ Writing

Similarly, if you order a lot of bars, we can place edible writing and even images on the chocolate bar itself. Shown in the picture is the writing version, but everything is possible. Have you ever seen the cakes with the photos on them? That's possible on chocolate, too!

Send your Chocolate on its Way with a Message

You will also be able to send a greeting card on its way with your chocolate. 400 letters to speak from your heart!

Customize the Shape of Your Chocolate Bar

Speaking of "heart"... - Now, we're still working on making this happen, but currently it looks like we'll be able you to offer you a heart shape for Valentine's Day (which is right after our launch!). Wouldn't that be sweet?

By the way, I wanted to make sure this is understood: There is no minimum order for each customized chocolate bar! You can design your own chocolate bar and order only one of them. However, for shipping reasons, we will ask you to design at least three (or pick recommendations), so that it's worth shipping all this chocolate across the Atlantic.

The possibilities are endless!

Happy Sunday everyone!

This blog post is an English version of a recent blog post on the German blog, so if you prefer German, I recommend you read it there.

Our dear chocri fans know that we support children on the Ivory Coast with your help. 1% of your order value is donated by us, and you will also get the opportunity to make your own donation at checkout. Franz and Micha, the founders of chocri, discovered the organization DIV Kinder even before chocri was founded - and who would have thought that thanks to German purchases and donations, a sum of 21,000 Euro could be donated a year later!

The Ivory Coast is the largest cocoa exporter on this planet, yet many people who live there don't benefit from the riches of their country. Especially the children, who run the risk of having to work to support their families. We at chocri use only fair trade chocolate, which means that fair prices are paid for the cocoa beans in your chocolate (as well as the sugar by the way!), enabling a family to send their kids to school instead of sending to the farm. But chocri does more. We donate to specific projects at DIV Kinder which ensures that your (and our) money is used well in creating a better situation for children at the Ivory Coast.

A quick look back: The first donation sum, 1000 Euro, was collected to finance a well. The project began in November 2008 and was completed successfully shortly after. Fueled by this experience, the next project was to finance refrigerators. While we here in the Western world are used to finding one or two in every house, at the Ivory Coast they are true luxury! Luxury that enables the people there to keep food fresh longer - an immediate benefit to the nutrition.

Yesterday we reached another milestone: Together, we collected 21,000 Euro!

After the successful completion of the refrigerator project, the donations are now used towards the construction of an orphanage, which will give a loving, safe home to 50 orphans.

The picture below shows early construction work for the orphanage

In the words of the DIV Kinder management (translated): "The orphanage means a lot to the kids, for it is not only just space, but a family that they can find there, and support of all sorts. We hope to see children here in a few years that have completed education and training and are stable people all around."

Together, we can really change something, and sustainably improve the lives of children, giving them real chances for the future. Thank you to all our German fans who help us with that, and thank you to all of you who plan on helping us to do that!

Your
chocri team

In the past few days, we had a number of new visitors to this site from different sources, so I wanted to take the opportunity to describe who we are and what we do:

chocri is a German startup, founded a little more than a year ago. What we do is we allow you to customize your own chocolate bar on our website. You get to choose a base chocolate white, dark or milk chocolate), and then your favorites out of more than 90 toppings. Those can be nuts and dried fruit, but they can also be real gold flakes, roasted almonds, pretzel, chive rolls, jalapenos... you name it! We hand-make the bars in Germany, and ship them to you.

We want you to eat chocolate and fully enjoy the good feeling it creates, hence we use only the best ingredients, such as organic, fair trade chocolate from Belgium. We also donate a percentage of our revenues to DIV Kinder, an organization that supports children at the Ivory Coast. Once we launch, you'll also get a chance to make a donation at check out.

We are excited about our upcoming launch in the US! We've had a few tastings in Chicago and New York and blog reviews already and you guys (and ladies) loved the chocolate bars we pre-designed. Wait only until you can design your own! :)

Those of you who share your email address with us on the upper left box on this screen will receive an invitation for our soft launch on January 5, but we'll open up for everyone on January 11.

Bloggers and press representatives are invited to check out our exclusive preview website - just shoot me an email and I'll give you the password to enter.

Besides that we are very curious to hear your questions and suggestions of any kind! We thrive because we have all of you contribute ideas and wishes, and we are very grateful for that!

A good while back, we started our toppings poll. We are now ready to report the results:

Top Ten Toppings

Two things I've observed about your ten top toppings:
- You like nuts
- We have most of them! Only Cocoa Nibs and Toasted Almonds are missing.

We can do that :). In total, we are testing six new toppings now: Cacao Nibs, Toasted Almonds, Orange Zest, Cookie Crumbs, Raspberry, and Black Sesame We'll keep you updated, and this is of course a continuous process - we will have many opportunities for you to tell us what's missing along the way - or just shoot us an email!

Most Hated

You didn't dig: Bacon, Hemp Leaves, and to my surprise, the writing "Congratulations" I guess chocri will be missing out on the bacon craze for a while... ;)

We Have A Winner!

S/he didn't write back yet (these mails are so spam-folder prone.. "hey, you won chocolate!"), but the winner was randomly determined and has a few days to get back to us until we do it again. Two customized chocolate bars from us! We'll have another blog post on that.

Thank you for your suggestions and opinions - it is YOU who is making chocri the chocolate bar of your dreams!