Episode 102: This Blonde Chocolate Walks Into Trader Joe's

-Oh, the blonde chocolate bar, from Italy. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have been so excited about this one that we even went to Milan and recorded conversations with the chocolate makers for this podcast. -Oh, that was a while ago. I don't think I remember what I said.

Should I be worried about this? -You? Nah. Never.

-Okay, then, let's go inside Trader Joe's. -I'm Tara Miller, director of words, and phrases, and clauses. -And I'm Matt Sloan, the culture and innovation guy at Trader Joe's. -And I'm Allison Trader Joe's category manager for Candy. -Welcome back, Allison.

-We're excited, but you, you actually put a lot of work into developing this new blonde chocolate bar. So how excited are you? -I am pretty darn excited. It's been a long time in the making, and it is finally here.

“-Okay, next question, why didn't we name it this blonde walks into a bar?”

-Okay, Matt. Strawberries, apples, pumpkins. They don't mind being the brunt of jokes, but... -It's far as you know.

- Allison, this chocolate supplier near Milan, they were all just amazing people.

-Are they? I love them. It's a family business. Several generations now, and they really know their chocolate. -Hey, you want to eat, drop on our conversation with them? -Course. -Okay, the first person we talked to was the president of the company, his name is Giovanni, his grandfather started the business in 1946.

-Oh, yeah, I remember. -You remember in 1946? -No, I remember when he told us about his grandfather. -The grandfather started just after the end of the second world world. He started in 1946, and so we are close to 80 years unbelievable. He was a young and brilliant entrepreneur, and he had this vision to make chocolate.

And the first product he launched in the market was a cake, made with the cocoa powder and chestnuts. Then he decided to start building a factory, and so in the early 50s started the company on an industrial scale. But unfortunately, just after the launch of the factory he died,

and so the grandmother took the board of the company with six cells, and two brothers of the grandmother helped her in managing the company, and so the story continued, and we grew.

“-Do you have the recipe of the cocoa chestnut cake?”

-Not exactly written, but we have an idea of that. -I'm so curious, what is it about cocoa or chocolate that you think was interesting for your grandfather? Did he have a sweet tooth? -In a moment where basically the basic food was difficult to ever.

Chocolate was something. I believe it was a super luxury food. His idea is I would like to make chocolate for everyone, not only for super rich people. That's the starting point of view.

There was a fantastic history. The forward-looking vision starts with your grandfather. -Yes. So the idea to make chocolate, put cheese in the cocoa beans directly from the farmers, all the vision, all the idea, all the values of the grandfather, our main goal is people, the farmers, the people working in our factory,

coming to our supplier, our customer. When I joined the company, while they were working, they sing.

“I remember many occasions when some people came to the office and say,”

"Hey, guys, I started working here 45 years ago when I was a children." I found my husband or wife in the company. We had kids and so I'm grateful to the company to the owners, to everyone, felt not only part of the company, but the part of a community, the part of the family.

Nowadays, it's not so often to have people to stay for the entire working life in the company. That's the turnover and it's normal. Let me say, from our perspective, we will like to keep exactly this type of relationship with our people.

Even if it's more difficult because the culture is changing, the people is moving around more than... More than before. Yeah. You hear a lot of people use the phrase from being to bar.

And it sounds like that's always been a part of your approach.

And that's not normal. We fell in love with Coco. Came in from a generation to another. And so we have the pleasure to control every phase of the process.

Starting from the selection of the best quality of Coco Bills

Some companies, and this isn't to say that it's bad.

Some companies offer chocolate, or they make chocolate available. Your company actually makes chocolate.

“Does that make you more interested in trying new varieties or new sources?”

After eight years and three generations, we knew a lot. We understood a lot, but the more we understand, much more to learn, much more to discover, much more to understand. So it's really a super fascinating world where, for example, Peru.

We thought to know everything about the Peruvian Bills of each area is every profile, every texture. A few years ago, we discovered a different variety from an area of the northwest of Peru in the Amazon forest. Completely different to all the others. And we started making new bars with this quality that was totally different.

Also not only in finding a certain quality of Bills, but on the process,

and especially on the first stage of the process.

So fermenting the bees in a way or another can express more texture, more flavor than other. It sounds like coffee, to me. It's similar.

“The plenty of production is really a tough job.”

I'm sorry, and I'm thinking the comparison to coffee to wine, because you want that second piece of chocolate, that second bottle to be as the first one was. Well, he said 2000 products coming through this factory. That's a mind-boggling number.

Fascinated by the need for consistency with a product that is so varying, just because of weather, really. Yes, it rains a lot. It'll taste different if it's dry, it'll taste different. We have a big team of panellists, 30 people. Their main responsibility is to rent that each batch of each bar

as exactly the consistency, the texture, the flavor profile that has to have. Sure. We select the panellists with the best people to do this. But on a rotation, because if you will keep the same panellist,

“30 different recipes at the 30 tastings,”

his capability to recognize the world, the client, so we have to change all the regular basis in order to don't stress too much people. I mean, it's similar in a way, at Trader Joe's, when we have our tasting panel, we don't do too many at once.

Because after a certain number of things that you've tasted, everything starts to taste the same, with the same with wine, we don't do too many at a time. I met cigars, mokers.

I can't be never a good pilot because of this.

It's moksygard, though, that's interesting. It's interesting to me. We buy chocolate from companies around the world. Can you pinpoint any specific differences between Italian chocolate and chocolate from other European countries?

Yes, there's some difference. For example, on the dark chocolate, we are as a philosophy to try to preserve the original profile of each quality of the beans. And so our chocolate are not for every type of people. So someone completely fell in love for them.

Some other consider too strong. On the milk, there's with invented the milk chocolate. There's milk chocolate, it's more sweet. We also need to prefer to emphasize more the cocoa part of the texture. The Belgian again, the Belgian is another type of more indulgence chocolate

and maybe less emphasis on the main texture characteristic of the different variety of the chocolate. Yeah, interesting. That's great. Thank you.

You're welcome. I don't know if I answered it. Oh yes, you did. That was really good. You sound like you know some stuff, so that's good.

As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's interesting how Giovanni and his family they really maintain their traditions of chocolate making but they also keep up with the times. So Allison, I'm wondering, what are the changes that you're noticing

about chocolate at Trader Joe's? There's been a lot happening with the supply of chocolate and cocoa, specifically the raw cocoa pods and it's been impacting the entire industry. Fortunately, we've been working closely with our suppliers

in terms of we haven't changed anything about the quality of our chocolates or the recipes and really trying to minimize the impact of the costs. I have noticed that milk chocolate has become more popular

where we've always defaulted to dark chocolate when we're making something

because our customers have been such dark chocolate fans and these still are, but milk chocolate is definitely on the rise. I would say to more interesting inclusions are something that folks are looking for. So my inclusions things to be put into chocolate.

Yes. Like cornflakes? Yes. Like that cornflake bar? That's fantastic.

I do think there's always room for the almonds and the standard things that you put in chocolate and you see everywhere. But we have been trying to expand our inclusions and it's been well received.

So branching out and finding new things that provide a slightly different experience with chocolate

“but I think that's always a fun thing to do.”

Working with suppliers like the supplier that is being tabar and really knows where the chocolate is coming from and the entire chain of the ingredients is really important. It's been helpful. Because that normal is that unusual?

It is rare. I think more companies are striving to do this as things get more complicated with the supply chain of chocolate a vendor that's doing the work from being tabar really cares about the chocolate and it really shines through.

We really got that sense from them when we were there visiting when they received the cacao. They do all of this sensory testing to make sure that it's matching their expectations.

I've never seen this level of care

and as you say sensory testing and not just of the finished product they're making but of the ingredients they're putting into the chocolate. Another member of the chocolate making family we met in Italy was Roberto.

“And like Giovanni, he's part of the third generation”

of this chocolate making family. It's like it's the Wonka family. So I'm Roberto and I'm responsible of quality control. My role is to check starting from the real beginning the Romattirial.

It means cocoa beans starting from the origin Tila, the variant of the product. My team is working closely to guarantee the safety, the quality and the complex with the legal regulation. It's a big job Roberto.

We are doing something like 14,000 analysis per year. We have an entire supply chain, a tracer. And thanks to the analysis we can guarantee the highest quality chocolates for the final customer. Classic quality control is almost past fail.

Is it acceptable or not? That sounds to me like it's beyond the normal scope of quality control and I'm really interested in that. The flavor profile is check on a prosciutto of the cocoa, but it's checked again on the cocoa beans

and the rival is checked during the production and it's checked in the final product. Thousands of tasty things. Your team says whether or not something can proceed to the next step.

Correct. This is the way. Do you know the show "The Mandalorian"? Yeah, the Mandalorian. This is the way.

“You just said that your total Mandalorian fantastic, right?”

Yeah. And we are buying the cocoa beans from 20 different origins. Is that 20 different countries or 20 different regions? 20 different countries for each country, different regions. We create maps to define the flavor profile

of each area of that country. How predictable is the flavor traced to the growing region? Good question. It's the mix of good agricultural practices but also the post-arvest processing,

the cooperatives have to take into account the weather, the soil condition and many aspects and we are helping also the local cooperatives giving feedback. So having those relationships directly with the farmers

is the most important part of that product.

It helps your business because you get the cocoa that you expect. It helps the farmers because they understand what to produce or how to process and handle it to meet those expectations as well. I imagine your customers appreciate that as well.

Have you always been interested in chocolate? My grandfather was one of the founders of the company. The first generation. So when there was the opportunity to enter in the company there was the selection of the third generation.

I made study in the university at microbiological fermentation which is close to cocoa beans fermentation. So in a family chocolate, it's not easy. You have additional pressure because you are part of the family to provide the example.

The beginning was tough because there is a comparison.

we love chocolate.

“At the end we are like a big family growing together.”

Perfectly said. So if you go to a restaurant and you didn't need too much

and you ordered dessert, is it always chocolate?

Chocolate is a maritalie. I'm with you on that. It's very obvious that you care about your work and you're very invested in what you do here. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your time. That was terrific. I really enjoyed meeting Roberto. I loved his candor. Even if you're a member of the founding family in the business,

especially if you're a family member. Respect has to be earned. Sounds like he really earns it. One more person in Italy, I want you to hear. Okay.

Mathia, he's a food technologist. Great. I love food. I love techno. That was more house. I know. Sorry. Nice to meet you and welcome here.

I'm Mathia. I work here since nine years old and now I'm the Erin de manager. You've worked here for nine years. Yes. Not since you were nine years old.

Okay. Okay. That's my boss. Yes, probably. Because you look young, but you don't look that young.

That's good. That's good.

“What does a food technologist do at a chocolate company?”

We have three things to do. New recipe development. We're new ingredients and combined ingredients. We have new ingredients. We are sourcing.

We have more than 400 recipes of liquid chocolate then became around 3500 recipes of final chocolate bars.

It's always challenging for us when we're working to partner, to develop something.

And we taste a bench sample. And then we'll that match the fully-scale production version. That's sometimes difficult. Usually the customer doesn't have an idea. Our complex is a chocolate factory.

Because we are being too bad for users. So we have several passages in between from the beans to the final bar. Another thing that is not easy from our point of view is the developer product that is not good for me, for Latia, or for my colleague Elena. But it is good for the customer.

That sounds very much like our tasting panel. When we're tasting things, we're the tasteers. And we have to balance that with our own bias or our own preference. It may not be what would make it successful. It can be really tricky.

It's difficult to say that something is good without saying, "I like it," or "I don't like it."

That's the thinking of the customer always.

Were you involved in the development of the bar that we are currently working on now? Oh, yay! We will be launching a blonde chocolate bar. I had never heard of blonde chocolate.

And now I can think of only blonde chocolate because it was delicious. Yes. The development started two or three years ago. We take a creamy white chocolate. And the challenging part was to develop this caramel concentrate

that mixed with the white chocolate base.

“So it takes, I think, 25 different trials.”

You know, they have to get to the final recipes. Changing the ingredients. We start from standard sugar, then we finish using burnt sugar. Then we put in milk. Then we take out the way powder.

We put a little of cocoa butter and flour. And so on and so on. Pilot trial, kitchen sample. The sensory panel together with our marketing team. And our internal sensory panel.

Very challenging. And then at the end, we decide to this base to add some biscuits. You know, to give these crunchy feeling in the chocolate that is very nice. My opinion, too. Doesn't taste like anything else that I've tasted.

And I've probably eaten a lot of chocolate in my life. And that was a new experience, which as Giovanni was saying, it's all about discovery. Whether that's something you find in the Amazon or it's something you develop. You're like mad scientists, cooking up new ideas.

With the idea to include the biscuit pieces. So it's a textural counterpoint to what might be heavy textures. From just the caramelized white chocolate. Does that come from the sensorial panelists? We start developing this product plane.

So we know inclusions. And then what we have seen from the market was that we have the necessity to add something to this part in order to characterize it more and more. And so we make also here some trial with hormones, with coconuts, also it's quite nice.

Because the biscuits delivered these very crunchy notes.

“And there was something that was not surprising in the market at that time.”

You know, you said, if you have 400 recipes of liquid chocolate that might result in well over 3,000 different bar recipes, this company is focused on bars, any other formats that you're working on. We have also some pro lines. And what we are seeing in the next three years is the decreasing of the size,

not with the purpose to have a less price point. But also because the market was once not anymore, the standard one-and-a-gams bar, or 300 grams bar, like Swiss guys do. But more bar, more to snack. 30, 35, 15 grams, 60 grams.

In maybe also with different kind of packaging, so not the standard. Carbord and aluminum, we have to say that flow pack, packaging that is also more easy

to bring with yourself when you have the gym or so on.

I like the idea of having chocolate at the gym. There is no bad time to have chocolate. Let's just be honest with you. Exactly. It's energy. It's energy for a quick workout. And so a smaller bar makes perfect sense if you're going to use it as an energy source.

You don't have to answer because it could be two top secret. Is there a project that has been particularly challenging that you can't crack

“some flavor or format that is proven to be impossible?”

We have one that we would like to develop at white chocolate with pistachio, but in order to make it green, usually they produce of this pistachio bar to add the chlorophyll. But it's not possible to do it inside the chocolate for a regulatory point of view. If you add chlorophyll in the chocolate, it is a color and so you are not able to declare it as chocolate.

It's a perfection. Yes, and so we are struggling with finding something that can help us to guarantee this green color. Everything from spinach, extract to algae, spirulines. But we are still working on that.

It's that important that it's green because... Yes, it's more without the color. It's tricky though because we were just working on a pistachio gelato. Okay.

The first sample when people in America looked at it, what's wrong with that?

I don't know that I want to eat it.

“It's like that's what pistachios look like.”

So it's tricky. I personally prefer a product without this enance of color because it makes the product more similar to what the pistachio color is. So a sort of grey brown, yes. But it seems that the market won't something different.

Sure. Sure. I think that should we go down in the production maybe something new. Okay. Can we record there?

Yes. You went through 25 trials to get this new blonde chocolate bar just right. Well, we went through several trials. The vendor took it upon themselves to go through many trials of their own. Did we have any back and forth feedback for them after they went through all these iterations?

I think we did one or two back and forth. Something about salt level, something about size or number of inclusions, crunchiness levels. Because it's not a salty bar. You wouldn't eat this and say, "Oh, it's a salted caramel bar, right?" But there is just a hint of salt that kind of amplifies all the other flavors going on.

You would be surprised at how much we talk about salt in the sweet categories. You have to hit it just right. Absolutely. When we were in Italy, we went down to the factory floor to see exactly where this bar was being made and how. Oh, but that was exciting.

I did not get to see it. [laughter] We're going to go downstairs now. We're going to go downstairs now. It's like a maze.

Mm-hmm. I could not find my way back just now. No. No. He is a way be deline on the witch.

We will use your chocolate bar. So the process, we have the same kind of chocolate. We add the biscuit pieces. We add the caramel concentrates. We mix, sold ingredients inside the mixer.

And then we deposit inside the chocolate molds. I don't think Lucy and I thought we could have kept up with this line either. And then the automatic box production. And then the product is done. I think this blonde chocolate bar will totally surprise people.

And I'm hopeful, and I believe that this will change a lot of people's minds. I love white chocolate because of the creamy taste. And the combined is creamy taste of the white chocolate together with the caramel.

No, and the crunchy texture of the biscuit in my opinion is incredible.

I agree.

“I think it's one of the most interesting bars we've developed in a long time.”

I hope people love it. At the factory, our enthusiasm was genuine. But I think we're even more excited now. I mean, what an amazing job Giovanni Roberto Matella.

They're a whole team of chocolate makers did to develop this.

I mean, you too, Alison. Everyone, all the other Trader Joe's crew members working on this. Yes.

“I'm constantly going up to people's desk asking them to taste candy.”

It's a hardship. Let me tell you. Yeah.

There's a lot of fans of candy in the office, so it's not hard to find people to taste.

So definitely a team effort. The Trader Joe's blonde bar, which I am holding in my hand, is in stores now, yes. Yes, go buy one. You want try it? Please.

It's in a box. It just looks very fancy. It's supposed to be like art decoli. Yeah. It's got a little foil wrap inside.

It is a beautiful caramel color.

“I've never tasted anything that tastes quite like this.”

Mm. Yeah. I'm getting some flavors that are like dulce de leche. That slight scorch on the milk a little bit in a great way. This really tastes like what caramel dreams of.

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And thanks for checking out the bomb bar. We hope you love it as much as we do. (upbeat music)