By Mary Elizabeth Kidd
When you walk into the Krog Street Market food hall in Atlanta’s historic Inman Park neighborhood, one of the predominant scents is that of warm, rich, roasting cacao coming from Xocolatl Small Batch Chocolate. Cutting through a barrage of temptations like Szechuan noodles and Nashville-style hot chicken, there’s something in the intimacy and warmth of chocolate that cannot be denied.
Five years ago, on Black Friday in 2014, one couple took a bet. A bet that Atlanta was ready for bean-to-bar, single-origin craft chocolate. Chocolate with 70%+ cacao content to Hershey’s approximate 30% and costing over three times the price of the average American chocolate bar.
Thankfully for founders Elaine Read and Matt Weyandt - and anyone who’s tasted Xocolatl chocolate - the answer remains a resounding yes. Yes, in the Southeast and beyond, consumers are ready for a better bar of chocolate. A chocolate that feeds the senses and, most critically, serves the people throughout the process who grow, harvest, ferment, dry, ship, roast, crack, winnow, grind, temper, mold, cool, wrap and sell what has been called throughout civilization: “the food of the gods.”
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In 2004, Atlanta-born Matt and D.C.-born Elaine met doing grassroots fundraising and organizing for the Democratic National Committee. Their bond over shared passions for travel, humanitarian causes and progressive politics was immediate, and they married within the year.
Fast forward to 2011, and the couple, between political and humanitarian work contracts, craved travel and a more involved means to promote change in the world. They decided to return to a small town they loved on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. So in January 2012, Elaine, Matt and their two young children Ronan and Evabelle set off to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica with “big, vague dreams,” a very modest financial cushion and a plan to stay around six months to a year.
During this stay, they fell in love with the chocolate bars from nearby farmers markets. These bars were made only of local cacao, a little sugar and no dairy, and they were very, very good. Nothing like the milk or dark chocolate confections they’d tasted before. Developing relationships with the local cacao growers changed everything. For the couple, it brought clarity and structure to the “big, vague dreams” that brought them there.
They returned to Atlanta and began making simple, delicious, single-origin bars, selling them locally at the Piedmont Park Green Market and Inman Park Festival. “The motivation was not just to make chocolate, we wanted to use this as a vehicle to accomplish the things we’d been working on over our careers,” Matt said.
They chose the name Xocolatl Small Batch Chocolate. Xocolatl (pronounced “chock-oh-lah-tul”) means “bitter water,” a word used by the Maya and Aztec for their spicy, tea-like drink of ground cacao, water and spices. It reflected the origin story and simple perfection of the chocolate they make; having “ATL” in the name spoke to their entrepreneurial home.
Husks are separated from the nibs in a winnower created by Matt Weyandt. Nicaraguan husks are saved for the Xocolatl tea and other husks are donated to local markets for composting. Photo by Kevin Brown.
From the business’ formative years to today, mentorship, connections and partnerships have aided Elaine and Matt in their goal of sustainable, ethical entrepreneurship. Key players in this? Bill Harris of Cafe Campesino and Dan and Jael Rattigan of French Broad Chocolates.
Harris founded Cafe Campesino, a 100 percent fair trade, organic coffee company, in Americus, Georgia in 1998. He is also a founding member of Cooperative Coffees, an importing organization dedicated to improving trade relationships between farmers and roasters. Harris’ work in the industry has charted the course for coffee and cacao cooperatives. “He’s been the model for running an ethical business,” says Elaine. Bill Harris has remained a constant hero and mentor to Matt and Elaine, he also facilitated their first cacao purchase from CAC Pangoa, a Peruvian coffee cooperative whose farmers also grow organic cacao.
Nema Etheridge, Cafe Campesino’s Marketing Director, clarifies why it’s important that cacao and coffee industries work together: “Both coffee and cacao can seem faceless, it’s easy to not think about the people and processes behind them. Ultimately it’s work to change a broken system that doesn't benefit those doing the most work.”
The progress of Cooperative Coffees has encouraged Xocolatl and similar makers to form an informal cooperative, traveling and buying together. This group includes French Broad Chocolates (Asheville, NC), Raaka Chocolate (Brooklyn) and Parliament Chocolate (Redlands, CA). Together, they visit partner farms, trips which are important for the maker-farmer long term relationship, says Elaine. “They’re planning out multiple years of harvests, and we don’t want to just be the transactional customer. We want to be partners, so they can count on us to be buying the fruit of their labor.”
Cacao is a labor-intensive crop grown in countries prone to political unrest where there is little to no representation for small farms and where the effects of climate change and disease have further complicated its growth. Farmers are increasingly incentivized to move away from growing cacao towards soil-depleting monoculture crops.
In the face of these obstacles, it’s often left to smaller-scale makers like Xocolatl to commit to the small farmers and cooperatives who are growing cacao sustainably, organically and ethically. With their informal collaborative, they can meet and exceed fair-trade prices, establish equitable relationships and bring more overall sustainability to the cacao supply chain. And it's paying off. Not only are the farmers able to better provide for their families, but they can also afford to maintain best practices in their cacao growing and avoid the transition to less profitable, less sustainable crops.
The hard-won success of makers like Xocolatl and the farmers they champion is profiled in the documentary Setting the Bar: A Craft Chocolate Origin Story. Producer Amy Burns says of the Xocolatl founders: “To us, Matt and Elaine are part of a group of chocolate makers who are creating the benchmark for what craft producers should be striving for.”
“This whole project goes so much further than chocolate for them. It gives them a chance to affect powerful change on a human-to-human level in the countries where their cacao is growing, it gives them the opportunity to speak directly to consumers about why our choices matter, and it helps them form community in Atlanta to provide for their employees and keep pushing the incredible products that keep coming out of Atlanta.”
Speaking further on the collaborative effort it takes to effect change in the cacao trade, Etheridge believes vested partnerships like this that are helping to turn the tide. “Change will come through collaboration, not competition. It happens with cooperatives, a course charted by members creating collective demand and determining trade arrangements that benefit all.”
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The cacao tree grows year-round within 20 degrees of the equator, thriving in a diverse ecosystem under shade canopies. Trees range from 20 to 40 feet tall and produce small flowers, which, when pollinated, grow to oblong, grooved pods varying in color from yellow-orange to rich red. Today, the largest variety of cacao species is found in Latin America, however, according to SlaveFreeChocolate.org, 70 percent of the world’s supply comes from West Africa, where underpaid, exploited, often underage workers harvest what is consumed in modern commercial chocolate products from corporations like Hershey, Nestlé and Mars.
According to Dan Rattigan, co-founder of French Broad, “Cacao, like many other tropical agricultural commodities, can either heal or devastate the rainforest, depending on how it's produced. It is also produced in many places with the worst forms of child labor. We are rather myopic at times, being so entrenched in the cacao supply chain, but we believe the importance of a healthy supply chain cannot be understated!”
“[Elaine and Matt] are involved in cacao sourcing in a way that doesn't usually happen for manufacturers until they have much bigger budgets: I don't love fighting metaphors, but they are punching above their weight!”
The cacao in Xocolatl’s chocolate is harvested, fermented and dried locally before being shipped to the States. One of the local partners vital to this process is Giff Laube, who co-owns Cacao Bisiesto, a Nicaraguan cacao company linking local independent cacao farmers to American craft chocolate makers. Laube was introduced to Matt and Elaine in 2016 through the Rattigans of French Broad. Xocolatl’s Nicaraguan beans have been sourced from Cacao Bisiesto ever since this introduction.
In opposition to price-gouging brokers who are common to modern cacao trade, Cacao Bisiesto negotiates for the farmers to receive above-market prices for their high-quality, responsibly-developed commodity. They also handle the labor-intensive fermentation and drying process steps that challenge most small farmers; this ensures beans reach the highest standard quality for supplying to artisan chocolate makers.
This is no easy process and, according to Laube: “It's not what a lot of us thought it would be when we got involved and it has not had the take-off everyone expected when we look at craft beer, coffee, etc. Given this difficulty, Xocolatl's success is admirable and is an example to many other makers. They have the right attitude and mesh well with their community.”
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Chocolate is tempered in one of two grinders with granite base and wheels, a mechanized mortar and pestle that grinds the nibs for 24 hours for 3-4 days. On good days, good tempering can help produce 500 bars per day. Photo by Kevin Brown.
Today, Elaine and Matt continue to bring chocolate back to its roots, focusing on their direct-sourced bars made solely with cacao and organic cane sugar and their “Flavor Inclusion” bars incorporating cacao, sugar and other ingredients like dried berries, Caribbean spices, nuts and coffee. All of their bars feature cacao from Peru, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Madagascar. The simple goodness of these bars allows the terroir and character of each region’s cacao to shine through.
In their first year, they produced 2 to 3 tons of chocolate per year. Currently, they are at maximum production of 11 to 12 tons of chocolate, all from a 220 square-foot production space at Krog Market. They have grown from a team of two (Matt and Elaine) to a team of 14 full-time and part-time employees. Currently, they are eyeing a larger production space and a public-facing craft-brewery-style space.
Praise from organizations such as the Good Food Awards, Star Chefs, and the UK Academy of Chocolate has, according to Matt, “served as a signifier to people outside of Georgia” and has translated directly to sales across the country. Xocolatl bars are available in boutiques around the country as well as in Georgia Whole Foods and The Fresh Market stores.
At their Krog Street micro-factory, Xocolatl offers afternoon tour & tastings, where the staff’s knowledge and passion for chocolate are evident. The tour includes lessons on history, botany, and sourcing along with a behind-the-scenes walkthrough of the process and equipment.
On the collaboration front, they have worked with companies in Atlanta and beyond like Cafe Campesino, East Pole Coffee, Queen of Cream, Little Tart Bakeshop, the Atlanta Audubon Society, Wild Heaven Beer and more.
For Eric Johnson, co-founder of Wild Heaven Beer, a Xocolatl collaboration was as simple as a phone call to Matt. Together, they have developed three seasonal beers and one signature bar. One thing Johnson admires most in Elaine and Matt is their similar commitment to excellent ingredients. “If you don’t care about your ingredients, you’re never going to make a product that is intrinsically delicious.”
According to him, there is also emotional value and currency in the logos on each others’ products. “In a city like Atlanta, there is a cultural renaissance being driven by collaboration. The confluence of brilliant creatives in this space is changing the face of Atlanta.”
Five years from Xocolatl’s founding, Matt and Elaine’s goal remains the same - to be known as Atlanta’s craft chocolate maker, with a reputation for sourcing ethically, sustainably-grown cacao and for uniquely showcasing the cacao’s distinct flavor profiles. “Our vision is To Enrich Lives through Chocolate,” continues Elaine. “It’s not just about making chocolate to make people happy, although that’s certainly part of it, it’s about how creating a chocolate company can benefit the lives of our employees, the farmers we work with, other members of the small business community and the customer.”
Many thanks for the participation of:
Elaine Read, Matt Weyandt, and Dan, Jess, Bobby, Joann and the wonderful team at Xocolatl Small Batch Chocolate, (www.xocolatlchocolate.com)
Giff Laube of Cacao Bisiesto (www.cacaobisiesto.com)
Nema Etheridge of Cafe Campesino (www.cafecampesino.com)
Dan and Jael Rattigan of French Broad Chocolates, (www.frenchbroadchocolates.com)
Eric Johnson of Wild Heaven Beer (www.wildheavenbeer.com)
Chef Maricela Vega of 8ARM (www.8armatl.com)
For information and statistics about the state of the cacao industry, consult the World Cocoa Foundation (www.worldcocoafoundation.org)
For information about the ethical production of chocolate products and to verify before you buy, visit Slave Free Chocolate (www.slavefreechocolate.org)