Our Story
Pod Chocolate began in 2010 with the goal to produce one of the world’s best chocolates where the beans are grown. From humble beginnings in a small thatch roofed hut in Bali Pod now employs modern European machinery and a sustainable business model that supports and empowers local farmers and communities while producing a mouthwatering array of delicious world class chocolate.
“We want to rewrite the history of chocolate,” says CEO & Co-Founder Toby Garritt, “chocolate is a jungle food, the most exotic food you can imagine, but most people don’t know where it comes from, how it’s farmed or even what it looks like”.
Toby’s changing this by making chocolate a short distance from where its grown on the tropical paradise of Bali, empowering communities and supporting farmers to increase yield, increase quality and importantly paying higher prices for beans.
As in many parts of the world local farmers were receiving a low price for their beans, diminishing yield and pest problems. Some farmers were cutting down their cacao trees, but Pod has changed this. “Cutting down the cacao tree? The source of chocolate? We need to plant more cacao, not less, and whatever the future holds we need to ensure it’s one with happy farmers, healthy farms and lots of chocolate. That’s our mission, giving the world the best chocolate we can while safeguarding it for future generations”.
“A small band of Southeast Asia-based chocolate makers is turning the $100 billion chocolate industry on its head – by producing world class chocolate bars from locally grown cocoa beans.” – Michelin Guide
Fresh chocolate made at source
Bali is an island paradise home to tropical beaches, verdant rice paddies, lush jungle and delicious cacao. It has an energy like no other place on earth, that mystifies, magnetizes and inspires us to make the most delicious chocolate possible.
Unlike most cacao beans that travel half way around the world before being processed in distant factories, our beans travel a short distance to where we transform them into fresh and delicious chocolate. Come and visit us in Bali...
