After two seasons of selling his handcrafted chocolate at the Hillcrest Farmers Market, Nathaniel Izard persuaded a few retail outlets around town to start carrying his Izard Chocolate bars.
Eggshells Kitchen Co. in the Heights began carrying them Wednesday, and Mylo Coffee Co. and the Green Corner Store started stocking product Thursday.
Wrapped in gold and then a turquoise-colored, diamond-patterned paper, the bars were popular at the farmers market, where Izard started selling them last fall. His production barely could meet demand by Christmas, with more than half of buyers being repeat customers. The eight-ounce bars sell for $8 each.
"Just now, we're starting to produce bigger batches and working to perfect the way we process the beans and make it into chocolate," Izard said. He has invested $80,000 in the venture, including money he's spending on upgraded machines and buying one custom-made piece of equipment.
A chocolate-maker is not to be confused with a chocolatier, who makes confectioneries with the chocolate. Izard starts with cacao beans he acquires from Belize and the Dominican Republic and, through a labor-intensive process, makes his chocolate bars adding only organic cane sugar -- no additives or preservatives.
The 22-year-old with red hair and beard left a desk job in 2013 and traveled to Italy to find his calling.
"It has a really cool culture there in regards to food. The quality is amazing, and there are a lot of artisan-type businesses there," he said of Italy.
Besides chocolate, he also considered establishing a store that sold only locally grown, fresh produce or opening a barbershop.
"I don't want to cut hair, but there's a culture with it that I haven't seen here in Little Rock," he added.
He put his name on the bars because he wants to be responsible for both the failures and successes of the company, he said. There's no school for learning to make chocolate, so much of what he learned about the process he had to dig for on the Internet or by contacting equipment-makers and others in the business. He started production in his apartment, then moved to a storefront he leases in the Hillcrest area.
He makes about 100 bars a week, working 13-14 hours a day on his feet and alone. He has yet to make a profit. The equipment upgrades should allow him to make up to 1,000 bars per month, which should produce enough income to hire some part-time employees.
The only other artisan chocolate-maker in Arkansas who Izard knows of is Hello Cocoa of Fayetteville, owned by three couples: Charles and Abby Davidson, Preston and Abby Stewart, and Lauren and Mark Blanco.
"It took a lot of time to figure out how to do it. It took a lot of practice," Lauren Blanco said.
As is the case with Izard, much of their time starting that company was dedicated to research and development of the chocolate-making process, Lauren Blanco said. The couples came together in March and launched sales in August. Their goods are sold at dozens of stores in Fayetteville, Rogers, Little Rock, Texas and Shreveport. The stores in Little Rock include Fresh Market and a boutique store, Reinvented Vintage.
"Particularly in Fayetteville, people are really supportive of local products," she said.
Blanco said there's a big movement across the nation for craft chocolate, much in the vein of the popularity of craft coffee and other products.
"It's really a handmade dessert, or treat or candy," she added. "It tastes fresh, and there no additives or preservatives like there are in mass-produced chocolate bars. We think it makes for a better product altogether. You can really taste the difference, and it's better for you."
Business on 02/14/2015