“Training and consultation from Nitin at Cocoashala was instrumental in kickstarting Paul And Mike in quick time. In addition to chocolate making, his insights about the Indian consumer were critical to create the right product portfolio”
Vikas Temani, Business Head, Paul & Mike Craft Chocolates, India.
L Nitin Chordia, India’s 1st certified chocolate taster, shares his incredible, inspiring & 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 purchased by 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 various functions, Nitin decided to return to India to pursue his entrepreneurial dream but most importantly, with an aim of nation building and 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 chocolate tasting course and a few lectures about his chocolate backpacking trip, Nitin decided to focus on chocolate education as an opportunity in India 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 needed to make chocolate. Nitin decided to research, explore 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 and 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 a range of equipments to their students, program participants and startups regularly.
As next steps, starting early 2015, Nitin started visiting cacao farms across south india and realised that farmers had no incentive to treat their cacao post harvesting and hence the quality remained compromised. Nitin started working with farmers closely on controlling fermentations based on various factors across the seasons and has now helped in setting up 4 cacao fermentary’s in India which together are capable of processing over 100 tonnes of fine flavour cacao annually! These were great starts and in the right direction and ensures constant supply of cacao beans to the chocolate makers. Nitin is currently pursuing several more post harvest projects.
Kumar and Palanisamy of Soklet took samples to Chennai-based L Nitin Chordia, India’s first certified chocolate taster, and asked him to give them a try. “If he wasn’t going to like them, both the idea and the chocolate were going to be binned,” said Palanisamy. But Chordia liked what they’d done and that led to birth of bean-to-bar brand Soklet.
Palanisamy, Co-Founder, Soklet Tree to Bar Chocolate, India.
With most pieces of the puzzle solved, and to tie up the loose ends, Nitin designed a signature 3-day chocolate making engagement program to help get chocolate entrepreuners, enthusiasts and future clients on the same page and level of understanding about the chocolate business and set expectations for both our clients and the industry. During this program, Nitin takes a deep dive into the cacao value chain, uncovers opportunities for clients, and even makes a few batches of delicious chocolate hands-on! This format has been incredibly successful for Cocoashala, and their most profitable and loyal clients have been recruited via this platform. Nitin believes in being transparent and upfront with his clients, and hence refuses to engage in projects unless the client spends 3 days with us and pays for this service.
We’ve seen great results from this approach. In fact, we’ve had 4 clients/students who decided not to pursue opportunities in the cacao value chain after understanding the challenges. They thanked us for helping them save money that they might have lost had they made uninformed decisions. We like to think of this 3-day engagement as a small insurance premium that assures informed decision-making. Cocoashala has trained 127 participants till date.
“In the first workshop on chocolate making, I learnt about the process followed by chocolatiers. The second workshop was a step forward to getting the fermentation right, identifying the right flavours in the cacao, etc.,”
Akhil Grandhi, Founder, Bon Fiction Bean to Bar Chocolates, India.
Cocoashala has incubated 4 bean to bar chocolate brands till date to improve their current offerings, develop innovative products, expand their businesses, and create new job opportunities and offers IASS (Infrastructure As A Service) to bridge the gap for budding entrepreuners as they wait for the equipments that they have ordered with us to be delivered to them and we assist them build a product portfolio based on our proprietary CFEM (Cocoashala Flavour Evolution Model) and save on valuable go-to-market time. The missing piece however was the last mile education as far as chocolate appreciation and understanding is concerned and Nitin invested considerable time, effort and money into hosting the IICCT chocolate tasting courses in India from 2018. Nitin started as the 1st ever external faculty at the IICCT, UK delivering classes in London, Germany and Amsterdam from 2017. Cocoashala hosted level 1&2 of the chocolate tasters certification courses in 2018 & 2019 pre pandemic and the Level 3 for the 1st time in Asia in India in Feb 2023 post the pandemic! Nitin has also been a judge at the International Chocolate Awards (ICA), London since 2014!
On the whole, Cocoashala as India’s only Cacao incubation center aims to foster a vibrant cocoa and chocolate industry in India by providing entrepreneurs with access to Knowledge Transfer, Technical Expertise, Training, Consulting, Sparring Partner, end to end Implementation services funding and access to state-of-the-art Incubation center. Cocoashala has also played a crucial role in promoting sustainable cocoa production practices to help enhance the quality of Indian cocoa beans and placing India in the world chocolate map!
“We are delighted to celebrate our 4th anniversary and the success of our incubation programs. We look forward to continuing our efforts to promote the cocoa and chocolate industry in India and helping entrepreneurs achieve their dreams” said L Nitin Chordia, Co-Founder of Cocoashala. “Our mission is to build a strong and sustainable cocoa and chocolate industry in India, and we are proud of the role we have played in achieving this goal.” adds Nitin. Below are some of our client mentions about our programs at Cocoashala:
“Training and consultation from Nitin at Cocoashala was instrumental in kickstarting Paul And Mike in quick time. In addition to chocolate making, his insights about the Indian consumer were critical to create the right product portfolio” – Vikas Temani, Business Head, Paul & Mike Craft Chocolates, India.
Kumar and Palanisamy of Soklet took samples to Chennai-based L Nitin Chordia, India’s first certified chocolate taster, and asked him to give them a try. “If he wasn’t going to like them, both the idea and the chocolate were going to be binned,” said Palanisamy. But Chordia liked what they’d done and that led to birth of bean-to-bar brand Soklet. – Palanisamy, Co-Founder, Soklet Tree to Bar Chocolate, India.
“In the first workshop on chocolate making, I learnt about the process followed by chocolatiers. The second workshop was a step forward to getting the fermentation right, identifying the right flavours in the cacao, etc.,” – Akhil Grandhi, Founder, Bon Fiction Bean to Bar Chocolates, India.
Nitin also operates Kocoatrait, World’s most sustainable chocolate brand with Poonam and has helped save 300+ kgs of plastics from entering the landfills! Kocoatrait completes their contribution to the Indian cacao value chain.
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.
Contact: L Nitin Chordia: nitin@cocoatrait.com; +919600064846.