It is a well-known fact that balanced nutrition must also include pleasurable food. What can be more pleasurable than a personalized chocolate bar you designed? So we've decided to talk a bit about health and chocolate

chocri actually has a number of healthy ingredients/ toppings that you can combine with dark chocolate. Here's an example of a bar that's full of goodness:

• Dark chocolate has a high amount of flavoniods. "Flavoniods keep cholesterol from gathering in blood vessels, reduce the risk of blood clots, and slow down the immune responses that lead to clogged arteries." (WebMd). Apart from that, any kind of chocolate contains theobromine and phenethylamine, which are linked to serotonin levels in the brain (read: chocolate makes you happy!). It also has a high amount of antioxidants - learn more about those in our blog post on Chocolate and Antioxidants

• Meanwhile, cranberries are packed with vitamins and antioxidants... but you probably knew that already

• Pine nuts are good for your nerve system and speed up wound healing, should you have any (we hope not!). Together with chocolate they're great for concentration

• Fennel is a herb that helps and strengthens your digestive system

• Scientists say, if you eat 20g of almonds a day, your risk of a heart disease drops by 50%. That's because they lower your cholesterol. If you don't like almonds, substitute them with Organic Spelt Flakes, they have a similar effect. By the way - your chocolate bar doesn't have any cholesterol!

• Finally, Ginger is an all-around health champion, and has for examples the powers to speed up recovery from a cold (or prevent it right away)

While we would of course love it, we don't recommend a diet that consists entirely of chocolate. But we do think a balanced, nutrient-rich diet is the right way to go.
Luckily there's soon chocri in the US, where you can design a chocolate bar that directly responds to the needs of your body.

In the last blog entry (see below) we told you we'd be on the look out for peanut butter that we can offer as ingredients (or toppings or enhancers... we'll see what they'll be called in the end...) for your personalized chocolate bars.

Well, our new and great intern Anne (hi Anne!) found some!

Peanut Butter Pieces

[We unfortunately have to disguise who they are really from, because then we could be told off for marketing with their brand name. Sorry! But think of who the authority in Peanut Butter is - that's what we're using].

Look a little like "Chocolate Lentils" but are filled with peanut butter - would that be a solution? Have you tried them before? Do you like them? Do let us know.

Meanwhile, the chocri team in Germany ordered them, will add them to chocolate bars and they'll see if it lives up to the high chocri standards. We'll see how it goes!

Until next time!

Thank you all for your ideas and opinion on the ingredients!

We're not done yet collecting, but wanted to give you the preliminary results. Here we go (drumrolls...):

Something funny: The "Smiley heart shape (male)" was more popular than the "Smiley heart shape (female)"! Did we have more ladies answer the survey? ;)

Interesting suggestions were
- Popcorn, or
- "Soda flavors",
- Toasted corn and
- Malt balls.

Something nearly everyone said was: peanut butter. This is a real challenge, since peanut butter isn't firm enough to really be placed on chocolate. Tough one. My mission is now to find peanut butter "pieces" or something comparable (peanut butter in chocolate coating as little pearls). - Please help! Have you come by any small peanut butter products that are more solid than peanut butter typically is? Shoot me an email at carmen@chocri.com or, even better, leave a comment on this blog post.

Oh, and if you read this and you haven't filled out the survey yet - please do! As you can tell, your opinion matters. True open innovation. Give us a few minutes, and we'll give you the ingredients you love!

Hurray! chocri won a prestigious award from a German magazine called Wirtschaftswoche with the concept of [personalized chocolate bars](http://www.createmychocolate.com]. More than 100 startups had applied. In the final round 5 companies had the chance to present their business plan to a jury full of representatives of important German and international agencies and consultancies:

• Christine Stimpel, Managing Director Germany of Heidrick & Struggles
  
• Julia Derndinger, President of Entrepreneurs' Organization Berlin
  
• Karen Heumann, Member of the Executive Board, Jung von Matt (Advertising Agency)
  
• Florian Schweitzer, BrainsToVentures (Investor Network)
  
• Christoph v. Einem, Partner at White & Case

We are very proud to have won this award for the work that has been already done in Europe. We also think that chocri received this award for the potential - with the concept of mass customization in general, but also with the expansion to the US, which was presented to the jury as well.

We are confident that we can live up to the expectations. That especially now that we've won the award. It comes with consulting services from the firms mentioned above, at a value of EUR 300,000. We say: Thank you!

In the picture below (from the award ceremony) from left to right: Franz (founder), Tobi (former intern), Carmen (me), Nadine (Micha's fiancee) and Micha (founder). What a night!

For the article by the Wirtschaftswoche Magazine (albeit in German) see here: "Chocri hat den Zeitgeist getroffen" by Wirtschaftswoche, Sept 2009

The most careful readers among you might have noticed a few additions to this website: Current ingredients are now live (see tab: Our Ingredients), and in the "More Info" section you can learn more about the team, chocolate and why it's fair trade at chocri. An addition I'm especially proud of though is the Ingredients Poll.

Give your vote on ingredients here - Ingredients Poll

With the poll we hope to learn from you what ingredients you love, hate or need. After all, this is a chocolate brand that aims to fulfill your wishes, so help us anticipate what those wishes will be. Should we include rhubarb? Is chili not appropriate for the US market? Did we miss something that you wish you could put on a chocolate bar?

In return for your advice we are supplying one lucky winner with two personalized chocolate bars, albeit with current ingredients.

Help us out and make chocri the chocolate according to your wishes!

Thanks
The chocri team

Today was the day I was waiting for: I got to see chocri's chocolate factory from the inside. The chocri founders and team showed me a great time. The highlight of the day: making my own chocri bars.
But all in order...

I arrived and met the whole team. Along I had brought some chocolate from my travels the week previous, to taste and be inspired (those might warrant another blog entry, stay tuned). I was shown the office and production, where I noticed two especially cute things:

1) A door full with mails and letters from fans (including the German minister of finance and the likes) who express their joy over chocri (see picture above)

2) A quote by Georg Lichtenberg on the wall, saying "I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better."

The atmosphere at chocri is very much a fun startup atmosphere. Here an example: After the tour and tasting some of the chocolates I had brought, we played: foosball! Micha and Franz joined Nora, the intern, and me. Obviously, Micha and me won. :)

Most of the time during my first day here in Berlin was spent taking packagings apart, analyzing fonts and colors, brainstorming about alternatives and how to make the chocri packaging even more beautiful. At the end, we were surrounded by pieces of cardboard and other material, but also equipped with great ideas and questions to ask our designers and packaging supplier. For example, we hope to have an elegant gift box for your chocri chocolate gifts soon.

There's no point denying however that the best part of the day was when I got to make my own chocolate. The chocolate factory itself is still small, and rather than umpa lumpas chocri employs real (sweet) people. Apart from that though, the process does have a the technical and magical flair of a Willy Wonka factory adventure. This begins with the machines that silently turn around the chocolate in the back. The base chocolate has to be well tempered, and not just one temperature but several in a certain order. Out flows silky chocolate, delicious and dangerous to look at. As the chocolate, now with the right temperature, makes its way into the form it is carefully measured and gently rocked to ensure an even surface without air bubbles.

Finally, the most important step is to carefully place the ingredients in a pleasant fashion on the chocolate bar. This is where the real mastery comes in. I made some chocri bars myself, but am too ashamed to post a picture. Ingredients that I wanted on one bar fell on the other, I moved some (which showed afterwards), and the end result didn't look that pretty either - in short, decorating a chocri bar is a skill not everyone is endowed with. Thus I had one of the ladies in production, Heidi, show me how it's done the right way.

By the way, I was wondering about this: Why do the children and their parents in Roald Dahl's "Charlie in the Chocolate Factory" not wear any hairnets? Well, I did, because the hygiene regulations in the production are rigorous, and apply to founders as to visitors as to those who actually work there.

The end of the day brought more foosball, which was immediately interrupted whenever a customer called (otherwise you could hear it in the background), but also some good work. Suddenly it was evening, and that concludes the story of my first day at chocri in Berlin. The next adventure will be here!

As mentioned many times below, chocri is coming to the US from Germany. In Germany, the 80+ "things" you can add to your marvelous bar of chocolate are called "Zutaten", which means ingredients in English.

Also mentioned below many times: we want your input as we immigrate. Today we need your vocabulary help. Is "ingredients" an appropriate term for these delicious nuts, fruit, drops, gold flakes (...) that you can add to the chocolate bar? Or should we call them "toppings"? Does that remind you too much of ice cream? Or should we call them something completely different?

What do you think?