You may have read on our blog that the very first chocri bar was actually created by one of our founders seeking a thoughtful and creative birthday present- one that was also simultaneously awesome.

He created a custom birthday chocolate bar, and it was so appreciated that long story short, chocri was born. Chocolate is consistently a frequently gifted item for pretty much every occasion. Aside from being delicious, good chocolate is amazingly versatile for gifts. Birthday chocolate works well for romantic gifts, workplace related gifts, gifts for kids and gifts for parents and grandparents. Birthday chocri, however, has one important distinction- you can create any combination to exactly fit your giftee's tastes.

While you can create a birthday chocolate extravaganza with your recipient's favorite toppings and their base chocolate of choice, we also have dedicated birthday toppings to make a birthday bar extra festive. Among those pictured above are an edible banner reading "Happy Birthday" and star-shaped candle holders, so you can skip cake in favor of smooth, creamy chocolate.

Another feature that is standard on all our bars but is especially well suited to birthday chocolate is chocolate names- each bar can be custom labeled with a name or message for your recipient. We've seen sweet ones, funny ones and romantic ones, and each week we gather up the five most amusing and post them on our blog. This is a particularly nice feature for birthday chocolate, as it really sets chocri creations apart from other chocolate birthday gifts.

Have a question about birthday chocolate? Shoot us over an email and we'd be happy to help!

If you've been reading business and tech press lately, you've seen chocri held up as a successful example for mass customization, particularly the mass customization of food. I think there are three reasons for that:

• We were one of the first companies ever to let you customize food online. Started in September 2008, there was only one other food mass customization company really, mymuesli.de.
• We have been growing a lot - in March 2009, chocri made about 17,000 customized chocolate bars a month. That's a lot, but that's less than half of what we make now - in the summer. Why good we grown so much? Because we have a really, really good product, and our customers recommend us and gift the personalized chocolate bars to their friends. Thank YOU
• We just received an investment from Ritter, one of the biggest German chocolate manufacturers. They wouldn't have invested in us if they hadn't been impressed in what they saw after they lifted the hood.

We believe in giving control to you, to empower you to make your own decisions - even with something so simple as creating your own chocolate bar. Because we know it's not just a chocolate bar. It's a way to say thank you, to reward yourself, to express yourself, to tell someone you love them or to get creative and to have fun. We'll definitely have fun making those beautiful custom chocolate bars and getting them to you!

Or if you're one of our new UK customers, "personalise" your chocolate.

As you may or may not know, chocri was conceived after one of our founders decided that the perfect gift for his girlfriend would be a personalized chocolate bar. While personalized chocolate makes a great gift because it is bespoke and created just for the recipient (unless you give a gift certificate so the recipient can customize their own chocri), the process can be a bit daunting for the first time virtual chocolatier.

You don't have to start from scratch to personalize a chocolate bar. While we love it when customers jump in and get creative with their bars (pretzels, pepper and pecans? Cashews, coconut and candied lilac?), there are a few ways to get a bit of help when you personalize your chocri.

1.) Check out our recommendation engine. If you fall in love with a single topping, it can generate some great suggestions to complement your choice.

2.) Tweak our recommended selections. Add or remove toppings to one of our ready-to-wear options.

3.) Fun with names. Even if you make a simple bar, creatively named personlized chocolate makes a great gift- for yourself or someone else. And we round up the top five each week on our blog.

Still stumped? Hit us up on Twitter or Facebook- we're always happy to guide you!

If you were a boy scout or a girl scout or maybe went to summer camp, you probably have happy memories of trail mix. Maybe you called it gorp (which is thought to stand for "good old raisins and peanuts, although that's likely a "backronym.) Regardless of the nomenclature, it's difficult to resist the popular mixture of peanuts, dried fruit, candy and other sundries that's a staple of hiking.

Trail Mix Day caught our eye because it reminded us of chocri's humble beginnings. Maybe you read the story, but the TL;DR version is that one of our founders, Franz, wanted to give his girlfriend a personalized gift for her birthday. After much deliberation, he decided to hand-create for her a white chocolate bar with gummi bears, dried nuts, and fruit. The fruit/nut/chocolate combo so popular in trail mix went over well, and customers in Germany and elsewhere were soon able to make their very own custom chocolate creations.

Trail Mix is so popular that it actually has its very own holiday. A holiday that's rapidly approaching. (Have you finished your trail mix gift list yet?) August 31st is National Trail Mix Day, and we couldn't resist putting our own spin on the classic combination with our very own trail mix bar.

We've added the limited edition trail mix bar to our recommended creations, and on it you can find Milk Chocolate, Cranberries, Peanuts, Colorful Chocolate Dragées, Coconut Shavings, and Almonds.

It's colorful. It's flavorful. And it's the unlike regular trail mix, it won't spill out in the bottom of your backpack during early fall hiking sessions.