We at Chocomize understand what its like to sell a product that is difficult to find in all the stores. That is what makes all of our mass customization businesses unique and useful – sometimes exactly what you want isn’t on the shelf. That is why we have established a strong relationship with BareFootTess.com, a website that sells women’s shoes in world exclusive sizes 10-15. Tess, who wore size 11, was passionate about making sure that nobody else experienced the frustration that she had when she found that her options were limited by size and, in 2005, opened up her e-store - “because style doesn’t stop at size 10”. For a 15% discount on your order from barefoottess.com, use the code CHOC15.
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Fresh Face Forward Dark Chocolate |
Almond All the Way Milk Chocolate |
Tighty Whiteys White Chocolate |
Banana Split Milk Chocolate |
Hawaiian White Chocolate |
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Drunken Sailor Dark Chocolate |
Hawaiian Sunset Milk Chocolate |
Gotta Love It Milk Chocolate |
From Sea to Shining Sea Dark Chocolate |
Trail Mix Dark Chocolate |
You know the story by now - we want you to be able to customize everything from Chocomize and we need your help picking out our new pillow packaging for the custom chocolate bars. Check out the designs and leave a comment about which you like better and why so we can give you exactly what you are looking for. (ignore the strange text on the right sides, its just a space filler for the moment)
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In the United States, cardiovascular disease has been the number 1 killer for over 100 years, but we have some heart-healthy treats to help combat this. According to a study done in Sweden, chocolate consumption decreases the likelihood of death related to heart disease. The results even suggest that it is dose-dependent, meaning that if you eat more chocolate, you are even safer. So put your healthy custom chocolate order in today!
For the healthy chocolate-eaters we suggest:
Dark Chocolate – high in antioxidants
Pecans or Walnuts – reduce cholesterol, high in protein, unsaturated fat, and antioxidants
Raisins – high in antioxidants
Raspberries or Blueberries– help preserve eyesight, high in antioxidants and vitamin C
Here at Chocomize it is no secret that we give each and every customer the opportunity to create a custom chocolate bar just the way they want it. Now we want to give you the opportunity to have your own bar immortalized on our Favorites Page, a place only reserved for the most delectable and creative. Once in the Favorites Page, your bar, named and created by you, will be among the legends like the Smores and Spicy Special Bars.
To enter your bar into this contest:
- Submit a name, base chocolate and up to five ingredients for your bar in the comments section on this blog post or on our Facebook Page.
- We will select the top 5-10 bars from all the entries next Friday at which point voting will be open to everyone. The winning bar (and if its close, maybe more than just the 1st place vote getter) will be placed onto our Favorites Page and its creator will get one of their creation for FREE.
We are really excited to salivate over these entries! Get those creative juices flowing and enter the contest!
The competition never ends here at Chocomize as we continue to bring you the best customized chocolate bars. Eric and Jim, both self-admitted "whimps" when it comes to eating spicy food, each eat one of the spicy chipotle peppers used in our Spicy Special Bar. The after affects are quite comical! Watch for yourself!
While Eric and Jim aren't spicy food aficionados, our Spicy Special Bar is one of our most popular! If spicy isn't how you like your chocolate, don't fret. You can create your own customized chocolate bar by choosing from 3 base chocolates (dark, milk and white) and over 100 ingredients! This opens up over 30 BILLION different possibilities for your very own personalized bar! Click on the Creation Station above to get started!
As you know from our recent blog post about rowing superstar and Chocomize founder Nick LaCava, Chocomize is chocked full of athletes. This means that Chocomize employees thrive on a competitive environment. The sense of competition is great as it is a driving factor towards maintaining our preeminence as one of the most innovative, fun and exciting mass customization companies out today. The competition however is not just limited to making sure Chocomize is the coolest chocolate company out there, sometimes the competition is within the office. Those of you who filled out our recent survey saw hints of this when you were asked to tell us who was the most handsome Chocomizer… which coincidentally ended up being this particular blogger. For the next few weeks the competition heats up in a head to head showdown between summer associate Jim Brown and myself, Chocomize founder Eric Heinbockel.
Over the next few weeks you will be the judge in a competition governed by genetics, testosterone and most importantly will power. As mentioned earlier this is a head to head match up between Jim 'baby face' Brown and Eric “sweet cheeks” Heinbockel. The contestants shaved their beards last night in order to get a clean and even start. Each Tuesday the two contestants will check in with Chocomize Blog readers to update them on their beard growing capabilities via a collage of beard photographs. Each week readers will get the chance to vote on the best beard progress. At the end of the competition… when Jim cries uncle we will tally the votes and those who voted on the winning side will receive a discount code for their next Chocomize custom chocolate bar order.
So in a race matched in excitement and speed only by the growing grass I say let the beards begin!
Jim and Eric square off smiling for the last time as the cut throat battle begins.
While we don’t plan on marketing Chocomize as the next big sports food, custom chocolate certainly seems to be fueling Chocomize founding partner Nick’s rowing career. Next week Nick heads off to Switzerland for the final leg of the Rowing World Cup series in Lucerne. Nick originally picked up rowing on the Saugatuck River in his hometown of Weston, Ct while still in middle school. He continued to develop his talent at Phillips Exeter Academy and then Columbia University where he was the team captain his senior year. Nick’s impressive career continues as he races in his second year of international competition. As you may recall Nick represented the United States last year at the Rowing World Championships in Poznan Poland.
Nick has been working hard, balancing his training and his role as partner at Chocomize. Nick hopes to return to the Rowing World Championships this fall in New Zealand with his eye fixed firmly on the 2012 Olympics in London. Between partners, interns and chocolate makers the Chocomize team is host to 8 rowers including Olympians Sam Stitt and Beijing Bronze Medal winner Steve Copolla… perhaps we should put together our own team? We wish Chocomizers Nick, Jimmy, Anthony, Sam and Steve the best of luck in Lucerne… perhaps they will even convert some Swiss chocolatiers into Chocomize fans!
So sorry to keep you all waiting for the fourth installment of my blog, I hope you all managed through Monday despite missing my usual “sweet” post. Again, I was too busy yesterday to handle it. With the help of our review on Mashable.com, we have had a wild amount of site traffic and have been swamped with orders since last week.
Well, I see you met Ryan…awkward. I think we forgot to mention in his ‘Welcome to Chocomize’ entry that he thinks he’s funny. Truth be told, he works hard and he knows more about computers than I do, so who knows what me and my laptop have coming our way after he sees that little comment.
So I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking me what ever happened with Eric’s wristwatch situation since he broke it about 3 weeks ago (see my first blog entry if you are a new reader). A lot of people are asking me questions like this:
What is he doing now? Does he show up late to work? Is he more efficient now because he can work hours on end without realizing it? Did he replace the watch with a new one?
I want to clear all this up for everyone so here’s what happened. The watch broke and he was devastated. In ruins, havoc in the office, utter mayhem. We found him trying to tell time by his shadow for the first few days, which just didn’t work at all, but it got worse. He couldn’t even remember where he lived after a few days and he wouldn’t accept any replacements. The only skill that remained unharmed, thank goodness, was his ability to make premium custom chocolate bars. He has found a temporary replacement for the meantime. Your standard big digital watch, nothing like that old classy gem that he used to have though, but it lets us carry on as if everything was normal.
4th of July orders have been flying in - don't forget to order your Independence Bar or make your own creation. This summer has been busy but fun and I've already learned a lot of valuable lessons from the young entrepeneurs at Chocomize.
Nothing but clear skies in The View From Candyland.
-Jim
Everyone at Chocomize is obsessed with the World Cup. You’ve probably seen our ads on the side of the fields. Actually it was a big 
decision to decide which team we would sponsor, Germany or the United States. Fabian (the resident German) is obviously a big fan of the German team, but he’s pretty outnumbered by Eric and I, as well as everyone else we have working at Chocomize.
Unfortunately the US was knocked out of the tournament two days ago, and unfortunately we don’t actually have ads at the world cup (give us a break we’ve been up and running for less than a year.) Hopefully it will only be a matter of time before the world hears about our delicious custom chocolate bars.
We should probably start rooting for Germany along with Fabian, but it’s kind of fun rooting against his favorite team so the verdict is still out on who Chocomize is going to officially support (you can probably tell this isn’t Fabian writing this blog post.) Who do you guys think we should support?
Nick
Another week comes to an end and it was a really exciting one for us. We have been featured in Mashable.com's 'spark of genius' series which was a great honor to us. Each week day they cover one startup company that they think is has promising and fresh characteristics that separates it from the competition. Mashable.com gets around 65,000 visitors a day and as a result of this post about us we have gotten hundreds of emails from all around the world asking if we ship to India, China, Japan, Europe, Australia, Canada etc.
It makes us really proud to see that there are so many people out there that would like to create their own chocolate bar rather than settling for the same old in the supermarkets. It shows us that we are on the right track with our chocolate with a choice concept. After all those emails we noticed, however, that we haven't really let people know what our plans are as far as expansion is concerned. With this blog post I'd like to shed some light on the dark.
Well, the good news is that Canadians can get started go wild on their custom chocolate combinations. We have already shipped hundreds of our chocolate bars to Canada but the process was rather difficult. People had to call in to place the order because our shopping card wasn't set up to accept international credit cards. Shipping to a different country also makes things a lot more complicated for us. There is a whole array of bureaucratic obstacles that need to be mastered ranging from import regulations to invoice requirements and customs regulations. We have actually gotten so many inquiries from Canada that we had to stop shipping there for a while. It just took too much time to prepare the boxes that had to be shipped there.
What’s hotter than summer 2010? Jim Brown. Whats hotter than Jim Brown? Chocomize would like to introduce summer intern Ryan Sudeck. Ryan is breaking the trend here in the office, as he is currently a student at Stanford University. While not enjoying the California sunshine, he enjoys rowing for Stanford’s Heavyweight team, playing golf and eating. Today is actually Ryan’s birthday and he is looking forward to lighting the candle atop his Happy Birthday Bar to a perfectly in-tune rendition of “Happy Birthday” from the rest of the guys here at Chocomize. Ryan is excited to be a part of Chocomize and looks forward to learning from everyone else here while contributing to Chocomize’s growing success.
It’s Monday so let’s get right to business - I have some delicious news for you today. Father’s Day has come and gone and I hope it was a grand holiday for the whole family; I personally had a great weekend playing golf with Dad and he loved the chocolate bar I made for him, but its time to get ready for the 4th of July and National Chocolate Day.
National Chocolate Day?
Yes, it is a real holiday on the 7th of July and we are very excited here at Chocomize to bring you the special Chocolate on Chocolate Bar, which will be on sale through the holiday. It's National Chocolate Day – give your sweet tooth exactly what it wants.
What are your plans for the 4th?
Here it is - the Independence Bar with Star-Spangled Sprinkles, also on sale through the holiday. It tastes as good as it looks and we hope you enjoy eating it as much as we enjoyed naming it.
(Go to the Favorites section to see the bars)
Check back on the site soon for some updates that we are pretty excited about. Shipping to Canada will be running shortly and later this week we’ll be unveiling yet another addition to the list of ingredients that is sure to surprise you.
Back in a week,
Jim
Happy Father’s Day! We hope all you Dads out there are enjoying your custom chocolate bars. In the spirit of Father’s Day, here are our favorite names people came up with for their Father’s Day chocolate bars:
Dad's Rocky Road - Happy Father's Day!!
Milk Chocolate
Nuts & Seeds: Sliced Almonds
Nuts & Seeds: Organic Cashews
Candy: Mini Marshmallows
Sweet Tooth Dad
Dark Chocolate
Nuts & Seeds: Organic Cashews
Fruits: Mango Dices
Dad's crunchy, chewy goodness bar
Dark Chocolate
Nuts & Seeds: Macadamia Nuts
Nuts & Seeds: Organic Flax Seeds
Fruits: Blueberries
Herbs & Spices: Cinnamon
Decorations: Fathers Day Plaque
DADDYLICIOUS
Dark Chocolate
Candy: Chocolate Candy
Candy: Kit Kat
Candy: Cookie Dough
Decorations: Fathers Day Plaque
You're a Sweet Dad
Dark Chocolate
Decorations: Fathers Day Plaque
Decorations: I Love You Heart
After another busy weekend with all of the Father’s Day orders coming in, I couldn’t get the blog updated yesterday (a portion of Monday's order is shown above) so here we are on Tuesday morning getting ready for another big push for the holiday.
Father’s Day
Have you gotten him anything yet? Go to the Favorites section to order one of our popular pre-made bars (on sale for $5.95), or go to the Creation Station and make your own bar for your gift. Don’t forget to get a greeting card as well!
New Ingredients
As you may have noticed, the ingredients contest is over and you can now add 3 new ingredients to your custom chocolate bars – cookie dough (our new favorite), kit-kat and junior mints. Are any of these your father’s favorite? Don’t worry, you can still place your order and we will have it to you in time for the big day!
PS
Ever heard of National Chocolate Day? It is rapidly approaching and will of course be accompanied by a sale on a special Chocolate-on-Chocolate bar.
Until next week,
Jim
Thanks to our fans, ingredients No. 104, 105, and 106 have just been added to our website! These three winners of the ingredient competition are quickly becoming a company favorite. Kit Kats, Junior Mints, and Cookie Dough...how did we not think of these before? Now it's time for you guys to start thinking of even MORE ingredients to add to our website. 
Not to brag or anything, but now that we have 106 different ingredients, there are 36,843,895,308 different possible combinations for you to make. That means we could give a different chocolate bar to every single person in the world for almost a whole week. Yeah, we're awesome. 
Here are our favorite bar names of recent:
1. Flower Power
Dark Chocolate
Other: Crunchy Almond Croquant
Decorations: Crystallized Violet Petals
2.Snack-Attack Bar
Dark Chocolate
Other: Potato Chips
Candy: Peanut Chocolate Candy
Other: Cheerios
Candy: Strawberry Gushers
Candy: Message Hearts
3. Mark's Sugar Coma Bar
Milk Chocolate
Candy: Pop Rocks
Candy: Sour Patch Kids
Candy: Nerds
Candy: Jelly Beans
Candy: Skittles
4. Love ya more than chocolate
Milk Chocolate
Nuts & Seeds: Roasted Organic Peanuts
Candy: Butterscotch
Decorations: Fathers Day Plaque
5. Daddy's Healthy Chocolate
Dark Chocolate
Nuts & Seeds: Whole Almonds
Fruits: Cranberries
The results are in and the winners are…
Cookie Dough, Junior Mints and Kit-Kat
In a vicious late weekend battle that kept us up all night here at Chocomize, Vanilla Bean was barely beaten out and the top four were within just a few votes, making the competition for the top 3 sweeter than ever. A big thank you to all the competitors and we hope you enjoy the winning ingredients. The list will be updated in just a few days so you can start adding the new flavors to your custom chocolate as soon as possible. See the final results below.
-In an unfortunate event related to cleaning out our storage room to make room for a large shipment, Eric broke the strap on his wristwatch and is having trouble adjusting to the extremely pale skin where his trusty timepiece used to be
-We bought an enormous new freezer so that we can make more ice at one time, making our shipping process far more efficient and making sure that your candy bar arrives in perfect condition
-We received our copy of “Candy Industry Magazine” with our feature on pages RC18 and 20 (read about it on our Press page)
-We met with a staffing agent to talk about hiring more employees because, thanks to you, our custom chocolate bars are becoming increasingly popular
-We updated our office’s modern art collection with a large Jackson Pollock-type piece
In other news, this month we are part of a contest on discoveringstartups.com and we are featured on a few new blogs, so click here to vote for Chocomize and check our press page to see what everyone is saying about the custom chocolate.
Anything interesting happen at your home or office last week? How was your last Chocomize experience? – Post about it here!
Father’s Day is approaching (June 20th) and we realized that at Chocomize we don’t really know much about the history of this holiday. Here are some facts about Father’s Day that we bet you didn’t know:
-Even though Woodrow Wilson as far back as 1914 advocated for Father’s Day, the holiday wasn’t made official until 1972, almost 60 years after Mother’s Day was made an official holiday.
-Although more phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than on Father’s Day, a greater percentage of collect calls are made on Father’s Day (a little random but what the heck.)
-The official flower of Father’s Day is the rose.
-Hallmark states that Father’s Day ranks fifth among card giving holidays.
-Over 1/3 of all cards sold on Father’s Day are comedic in nature.
-There are 67.8 million Dads in the USA.
-The first recorded celebration of Father’s Day occurred in Spokane Washington 100 years ago.
Have any other good facts about Father’s Day not listed above? Let us know!
-Nick
