As delicious as they sound, chocolate-based businesses can be a chore to get off the ground. There are health standards, equipment, ingredient suppliers, recipes, and a huge list of other factors to consider. But most challenging of all, you need to come up with a fantastic concept – that concept will make or break your business.
Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of seven chocolate business ideas to get you started. These business ideas are all based on the latest chocolate trends in the industry, so you can be sure you’ll have a leg up on the competition.
These tastings are like wine tastings for chocolate: Teach your guests how to evaluate and describe the taste of chocolate. Chocolate-education businesses have low startup costs as they can be held at local community or conference centers, making them ideal for a first-time business owner. Tastings and other educational events also provide ample opportunity to sell chocolate products to your guests, so you might even want to consider pairing this idea with another business from this list.
Chocolate lovers are always looking for unique ways to eat their favorite food, so give them a memorable experience by opening a chocolate cafe. Fill your cafe with delicious chocolate-based food and attention-grabbing features like chocolate drink fountains.
Creating chocolate with novelty flavors is an exciting – and tasty – way to differentiate your business from the competition.
Some interesting flavors to consider:
Chocolate mixed with spicy flavors – like hot peppers or cayenne – also continue to be popular.
Health food of all varieties continues to be a hot trend, making healthy chocolate an ideal foundation for a business. Dark chocolate is the perfect pairing for this type of business: It’s full of flavonoids, antioxidants, and minerals. And if it’s organic, all the better. The demand for this healthy and delicious chocolate is projected to continuing growing, so now might be the right time to jump into the market.
Nutraceutical chocolate is another branch of the healthy-treat segment to consider for your business. These chocolates combine the health benefits of cocoa with other powerful ingredients, providing consumers with a wholesome and tasty treat.
These classes can be held in local venues, but if you want to go all out, hold your chocolate cooking classes in a vacation destination like a cozy bed and breakfast. Like chocolate tastings, cooking classes also offer plenty of opportunities to sell chocolate-related products to your guests, especially when the events are held around Christmas or Valentine’s Day.
For smaller chocolate-based businesses, creating artisanal products can be the way to differentiate yourself from the bigger players in the industry. Creating artisanal chocolate is all about using high-quality ingredients, traditional methods, and hand-crafting with care, so this is definitely a business suited for chocolate lovers.
Many have declared chocolate the new coffee, so why not look to java for some business inspiration? Like coffee, consumers are increasingly interested in fair trade chocolate. Although the ingredients to make this type of chocolate may be more difficult to source, the demand for this ethical product is definitely there. Consider selling or advertising your ethical treats a fair trade coffee shop to find the perfect customer.
Although these seven cutting-edge chocolate trends are exciting, old favorites – like ganache, chocolate treats, fudge, and truffles – can still be the basis for a viable chocolate business. In any case, the main criteria for choosing one of these businesses is finding something you absolutely love to do – and a chocolate you absolutely love to eat!
If you are interested in even more chocolate-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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