Greetings Everyone

Hi Everyone,

After reading many discussions on this website for almost a year, I am finally introducing myself. Howdy!

I am in the nascent stages of starting my business. By training, I am a philosopher. But in a year off from academia I fell into chocolatiering and then quickly designed, packaged, and sold my product (my one product) in Los Angeles (to retailers and to individual clients). By 6-month's end of being "in business" I stopped production and moved to Houston to continue my doctoral studies in philosophy.

Now I am in Houston and I can no longer ignore the chocolate itch.

This time around I'd like to begin by doing things differently. In LA, I did everything. EVERYTHING. It was all very micro-batch. Recipe R&D, tempering (by hand), dipping, shelling peanuts by hand,designing brand aesthetic, label design, printing labels, cutting labels, hand-wrapping confections, marketing (and more marketing, social media, etc), selling wholesale, selling retail (like to people in hip parts of LA out of my leather satchel but also at pop-up markets), and building my network in the gastro-arts. It was fun because I was looking for something to do, but it was not very sustainable. By the time I had to leave LA I was burned out, as you could imagine.

This time I would like to begin by finding someone who can help on the production end, and perhaps getting a tempering machine just to automatize that end of things. I'd also like to find someone to print my labels for me, and if I decide to re-brand (now would be the time) to find someone to design for me. Costs of all that, though, can be prohibitive. And I like the aesthetic I've created. Of course, there's the name recognition (if I were to offer my oeuvre in LA).

So right now I will begin navigating theacquisitionof licenses and permits here in Texas. I will finalize some products too and finalize packaging (I no longer wish to print and cut my own labels). All very nascent still. At some point I will begin writing my business plan as well. And all in the foreground, are my studies in philosophy.

I am currently most interested in and reading through the archives for: 1) where to acquire packaging for small scale production, 2) business plan guidance, 3) thoughts on (new world) (soft) nougat, and 4) finding a small capacity tempering machine (~10lbs).

Nice to finally and formally introduce myself.

Cheers!

Roma

Roma Chocolates

roma@romachocolates.com