Handcrafted Bean-to-Bar Chocolate - Conspiracy Chocolate

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Amit Oz, Co-Founder of Conspiracy Chocolate, located in Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We are bean-to-bar chocolate makers. This means we belong to a category of chocolate-making similar to craft beer, natural wine, traditional tea, etc. "The farm-to-table of chocolate." Chocolate is a culinary expression of one of the most amazing plants on the planet, cacao. The industrial revolution has hurt the way we express a lot of traditional foods, including cacao, and Bean-to-Bar chocolate makers are bringing back real chocolate.

Our direct customers are people who won't compromise on flavour or nutrition or fans of other fine food like wine or tea. Our business customers are fine dining establishments and other creators or sellers of high-quality food.

Tell us about yourself

After the army, I cooked and bartended. I was lucky enough to be pulled into a solid office job by a regular customer. I spent 7 years in corporate but could not stay at a desk; I needed to go back to food. I am passionate about the sense of taste and its incredible implications on our lives. This passion affects the way I make and consume anything, and after discovering chocolate, I couldn't help going deeper.

This learning is endless, and I am endlessly motivated to improve our products and create new and delicious ones. In this way, our work is part of sharing and storytelling, either by a chef on a plate or between friends in a gift. Besides this, the innovation in both food science and sustainability are the parts of my job that keep me excited and interested in taking risks and trying new things.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest achievement as a business owner? This boils down to a subjective view where our most recent accomplishments always feel the biggest. Trying to zoom out, I'd say that it must be creating chocolate that world-class chefs who we deeply respect, such as Richard Ekkibus or Daniel Guevara Quintero, refer to as some of the best they've had. Arriving here was not only a matter of making chocolate, but extensive R&D, a lot of learning, and often rejecting iterations that may be good but not enough.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Creating a perfect balance of time, attention, and accountability management between all the areas we cover. Most people have a choice in their professional life between taking a deep and narrow or a wide and shallow approach to their work since either is a fit for a function. As business owners, we must take a deep and wide approach to all areas of the business and our industry. Managing one's brain to develop a capacity for this is a balancing act that's not for everyone.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Be endlessly curious, both about products and innovation and about people: customers, team, and industry. This also means constantly learning new skills (for real - not a YouTube video!) - especially the ones you will need in the next chapter of your business's growth.
Listen to everyone's advice. Ask lots of questions and understand their perspective fully. Then make up your own mind after hearing it all.
Be ruthlessly protective of your time, especially if you want to have enough of it to be generous with it.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.conspiracychocolate.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/conspiracychocolate/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conspiracychocolate/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/conspiracy-chocolate/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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