A Management Consultants Journey into the Indian Cacao and Chocolate Value Chain

How a Retail Management Consultant is driving the Indian Fine Flavoured Cocoa and Bean to Bar Chocolate Industry!

· Cacao is the basic raw material which is needed to make chocolate. Nitin decided to study and map the entire cacao value chain in-depth from the cacao farm to the chocolate bar.

L Nitin Chordia, India's 1st certified chocolate taster, shares his incredible, inspiring and imprinting cacao/chocolate journey. In 2004, Nitin was awarded an M.Sc degree in Retail Business Management from the University of Surrey, UK. Among several retail business projects, his initial career's highlight was his contribution towards setting up the Godrej Natures basket chain of gourmet grocery stores (recently sold to Spencer's Retail). During that project, Nitin gained valuable exposure towards fine flavoured bean to bar chocolates as he tasted/tested chocolates from 50+ global brands. During his management consulting days Nitin as part of many successful and failed projects and attributed most project failures to expectation mismatch. Fast forward to 2013, after having spent a good 4 years in the USA advising retail clients in their various functions, Nitin decided to return to India to pursue his entrepreneurial dream but most importantly, to try and make a real difference to what ever he chooses to do. As part of opportunity exploring, among his 1st investments was a chocolate backpacking trip to Belgium and a chocolate tasters certification course from IICCT, UK as he decided to learn about chocolates in depth with a top down approach. After the course and a few lectures about his chocolate backpacking trip, Nitin decided to focus on chocolate education as an opportunity and to help make a difference to the Indian cacao industry and decided to set up Cocoashala in early 2014 in collaboration with his wife Poonam.

Cacao is the basic raw material which is needed to make chocolate. Nitin decided to study and map the entire cacao value chain in-depth from the cacao farm to the chocolate bar. Nitin recognized a few gaps in the cacao value chain specifically as he started to engage with cacao farmers and equipment makers. The gaps were clearly the availability of good quality cacao beans and small/medium scale processing equipment. He decided to invest considerable time over the next few years in developing and improving existing small scale equipments for processing cacao into chocolate and finally decided to work on and build an energy efficient cocoa cracker winnower himself! Cocoashala now offers this to startups regularly.

About Cocoashala, Poonam Chordia & L Nitin Chordia

Cocoashala, Chennai is the world’s 1st and only bean to bar incubation center and training institute focusing on placing India on the world cacao map. Cocoashala has trained top bean to bar makers in India and helped them grow in this highly profitable and exciting Bean to Bar chocolate making industry. Cocoashala is founded by Poonam Chordia & L Nitin Chordia, both based in Chennai and are India’s 1st Certified Chocolate Tasters (Male & Female). Nitin has been a judge at the International Chocolate Awards, London. Nitin is the 1st external faculty at the Institute of fine chocolate tasting, London and has been hosting India’s 1st Chocolate tasting certification in Chennai since June 2018. Cocoatrait represents India in international cocoa conferences/events and represents Indian cacao. Poonam & Nitin also operate the world’s 1st and most sustainable chocolate brand called Kocoatrait.