Today we’re talking to Harshit Gupta and Elliott Curelop of Madhu Chocolate–an Austin-based bean-to-bar chocolate maker founded four years. Madhu means “honey and sweet” in Hindi and is Harshit’s mother’s name.
Madhu Chocolate uses Indian spices, nuts, and flavors in its chocolate. They ethically source high-quality cacao beans from Colombia with fair trading practices to make sure nobody gets left behind while striving for transparency throughout all aspects of production at their facility–this includes using 100% renewable wind energy and composting.
Editor: Welcome guys. I love your product. I found your product because my wife bought it home for special occasions. How did y’all hit on the idea to combine Indian spices with chocolate?
Elliott Curelop: I had made chocolate as a hobbyist for a couple of years, and when took me to India for the first time I was introduced to a wide new world of flavors. That was really the jumping-off point. I thought “why isn’t everyone familiar with these flavors? they’re amazing”
Editor: That’s great to hear. Indian spice markets are an experience! So many colors, so many flavors. So how did that trip to India translate to Madhu’s Chocolate
Elliott Curelop: After trying some of the many Indian desserts, I fell in love with the flavors, but I did find the desserts themselves to be a little sweet. And I really thought they would work well within the context of chocolate.
Harshit Gupta: It was more of an “aha” moment at that point – why not bring Indian spices and flavors and chocolate together
Elliott Curelop: Yeah, and from there it was a lot of experimentation to see if the flavors really worked like we thought they would with chocolate
Editor: Fusion cuisine for the most important part of the meal…Dessert!
Elliott Curelop: Ha!
Editor: Where did you first start selling the bars? What was the initial customer reaction?
Elliott Curelop: We started at our local farmer’s market here in Austin.
Harshit Gupta: We thought it was a great place to start the business with the support of professionals like the best llc service in kansas. Less investment, less risk, and direct customer feedback which was huge for us.
Editor: Great place to get face-to-face customer feedback!
Elliott Curelop: Oh, the direct feedback was essential to us in our early stage
Harshit Gupta: Also, the State of Texas allows you to make food at home and sell it at the farmer’s markets–cottage law.
Editor: That law has helped a lot of consumer products to grow. Perhaps that’s why Austin has such a robust consumer product good industry.
Harshit Gupta: True that.
Editor: What was some of the feedback that you used to adjust your product?
Elliott Curelop: I remember a customer early on telling us that our rose pistachio tasted “good” but tasted neither like rose nor pistachio, so I immediately looked at revising the recipe
Harshit Gupta: Also, it helped us understand customer buying patterns – we used to sell both 60% Cacao and 70% Cacao – pure dark chocolate with no flavors in it. And it became very clear within 2 months that 60% Cacao was not going to sell.
Editor: Interesting.
Harshit Gupta: Also, it gave us a chance for a lot of consumer education – what is Saffron, Cardamom, etc. How is chocolate made? Where does chocolate come from? What is a cacao pod?
Elliott Curelop: Yeah, we broke out the spice box to do a lot of educating, which was really fun
Editor: I think that’s my favorite part of farmer’s markets is all the things I learn about food from the vendors
Elliott Curelop: Farmer’s markets are an amazing way to connect us with the food we eat
Editor: Education is part of your culture. There’s a good amount of education about your product on your website. I also noticed that ethical sourcing is a significant part of your offering. What drives that? How do you make it happen?
Elliott Curelop: It is very important to us not to make the world a worse place so we can earn cash. And chocolate is rife with exploitation, so it was a big concern early on
Harshit Gupta: Big chocolate brands like Cadbury, Hershey’s, etc. are notorious for that.
Elliott Curelop: Luckily there are a lot of businesses that pride themselves on offering sustainable, non-exploitative cacao and we’re so happy to have seen that movement grow
Harshit Gupta: For us, ethical sourcing meant our farmers can get above fair-trade pricing on their product which is cacao. The same standard also most of the spices which we source currently.
Editor: That flows down to your product pricing and makes it a premium-priced product
Elliott Curelop: One thing we have learned through this whole process, from sourcing ingredients to making the finished product, is that chocolate is not supposed to be cheap
We have just been conditioned to believe it is a simple, cheap item because the massive entities for years used unpaid and slave labor as well as artificial flavors and fillers to make their items cheap
Editor: A lot of our food is a lot cheaper than it should be logically–industrial food! Amazes me that a banana can travel from South America to our grocery store and be sold for less than the cost of a postage stamp.
Harshit Gupta: Yes, definitely. A very interesting question we used to get at the farmer’s market about pricing. Craft chocolate is not meant to be cheap; it is not meant to be consumed in one sitting.
Editor: The flavors are intense and complex enough that a little bit does satisfy
Harshit Gupta: Exactly
Editor: What are people’s favorite flavors?
Elliott Curelop: Masala Chai is certainly a crowd favorite
Harshit Gupta: I would say, Masala Chai
Elliott Curelop: Rose Pistachio would be a very close second
Editor: Very traditional flavors in India! Design seems to be a big part of your product as well. The wrappers are gorgeous. What’s the story behind the wrapper designs?
Elliott Curelop: My little sister does all our packaging designs She worked very hard looking at different traditional Indian textiles because we thought it would be a clear way to show what we’re all about
Editor: Great source of inspiration!
Harshit Gupta: We wanted to showcase India in its true form. bright, vibrant colors and patterns. Also wanted to say that this chocolate is special from the outer packaging to inside content.
Editor: What was the next step after the farmer’s market
Harshit Gupta: We wanted to grow into retail markets and be able to sell our products online. For that, we made a logical move of moving our production to a commercial food manufacturing facility. This opened doors to several sales channels. Currently, the facility is in Georgetown – approximately 400 sq.ft. where we produce all our products.
Elliott Curelop: We were getting wholesale inquiries when we were still a cottage industry so we thought it would make sense. And we very quickly have outgrown this space.
Editor: I need to get a new stash for our “chocolate cabinet” (yes that’s a thing at our house) Where can you buy your products?
Elliott Curelop: Well here in Austin we are at all the local Whole Foods, as well as Central Market on North Lamar
Harshit Gupta: At Manana Coffee, Salt and Time, Antonelli’s, Royal Blue Grocery on East 6th, Prima Dora, Tiny Grocer
Editor: I’ll have to make a run! Entrepreneurship always involves challenges, especially during growth. What are some of the challenges that y’all have had to overcome?
Elliott Curelop: The onset of the pandemic was the biggest challenge we faced. Overnight we lost all the wholesale accounts we spent the previous year building up, and we needed to make a big pivot to online retail sales to stay in business We were very lucky to be as small as we were when all of these happened because we were able to make a fast change without too much disruption
Editor: Have y’all faced supply chain issues caused by COVID?
Elliott Curelop: We did run into some supply chain issues, specifically with our packaging – shipping via sea last year took more than 4 months to get to us. This was due to traffic at the ports due to a lack of customs folks.
Harshit Gupta: On the supply chain, it’s been a challenge – cacao sourcing has taken more time now, multiple raw materials are out of stock, inventory control has become much more challenging, and shipping costs have increased at least twice at this point.
Editor: That’s a common story. The pivot during the pandemic. Took a great deal of agility to survive.
Harshit Gupta: Keeping up with social media is a huge challenge for us, engaging with your customers, being authentic.
Editor: I’ve not quite mastered social media. I muddle along. What challenges do y’all face in social media?
Elliott Curelop: You must stay on top of it all the time. The algorithms they use prioritize posting with regularity, and it’s hard to keep thinking of fun new ways to present our brand to people
Harshit Gupta: Just keeping up with it. Currently, there has been a shift to reels (which are short videos on Instagram) that are very time-consuming to create. Still pictures are easier to do but when it comes to any short video there involves a lot of editing and thought processes around it.
Elliott Curelop: We certainly have learned a lot of creative skills due to using social media so that’s been good for us
Editor: Small business involves agility, learning, and growing. Any new products we should watch out for?
Elliott Curelop: We do have a few projects we’re working on for the holidays.
Harshit Gupta: We started a new program of micro-batch chocolate, and we release a very small amount of these chocolates every few months.
Editor: Didn’t y’all recently win a Food and Wine Magazine award for one of the 50 best chocolatiers?
Elliott Curelop: We did! Well, it wasn’t an award, but they did list us as one of the best in the US
Editor: Congratulations! Brag a bit about your other awards.
Harshit Gupta: We did recently win a Good Food Award for the Idukki Black Pepper chocolate bar – (which is like. That is the very first time we made a chocolate bar exclusively with Indian cacao and spice coming from the same region as cacao.
Editor: Thanks, Elliott and Harshit this was a blast. I hope we can meet face to face soon
Congratulations on building an exciting company in Austin