Creating Growth around Quality and Independence

Creating a Better Chocolate Experience

Antelope Trading Company was created in 2012. In the true sense of a mom-and-pop company for the past 14 years my Terrie and I have manufactured our chocolate product as sole proprietors of our LLC. Starting out under Colorado cottage industry rules we sold our products at local events. Before the year’s end, we had met the FDA requirements to manufacture and sell our products both retail and wholesale. We have continued to manufacture in Cedaredge, Colorado using rented facilities.

The motivation to start our company was a lack of Hot Chocolate Drinks on the market that were not overly sweet. Our motivation was to find a drinkable chocolate that we could enjoy daily that provided the pleasures of chocolate consumption along with health benefits associated with dark chocolate. Our searches in local and online grocery and health food stores had limited options that failed to meet our criteria. We found products that were tasty or healthy but were generally excessively expensive. Eventually we began experimenting in our kitchen, testing different cocoa and chocolates, adding spices that have long been traditionally paired with drinking chocolate. We found that we enjoyed the process of experimenting and soon arrived at a combination of ingredients that fully met our criteria. Our interest initially was for our own consumption, but as we shared our blend with friends, something that chocolate lends itself to do, we were encouraged to share it more broadly.
Independence as a Business Strategy

We were surprised by the acceptance of our products, and we went from making a personal supply to several thousand pounds in just a few years. Our most successful markets have been boutique kitchen and health food specialty stores. We successfully sold in Wholefoods Markets for over ten years. Throughout our growth we have balanced our original objectives for our product against desires and pressures of massive growth and market presence. When we started our company, we were nearing the sunset of our professional careers and decided to limit our growth to what we could handle without accumulating additional debt. That decision has had serious consequences in our ability to present our product to markets that we believe would be receptive and lucrative. It has also allowed us to have the freedom to walk away from it without consequences other than our personal labor. That was particularly comforting to us as we faced the challenges that Covid Virus placed on our ability to market our products face to face. Limited growth has also placed in our literal hands many of the operations that common food and packaging equipment streamline.

Growth questions have not been the only challenges that we have faced as we have navigated our small company. Our product is chocolate and spices with no preservatives or additives to distract from chocolate’s virtues. The chocolate market has been volatile over the years. There have been crop failures, child labor scandals, political upheavals, and questions about product safety because of heavy metal and other chemicals that end up in chocolate for a variety of reasons. The prices of our ingredients have fluctuated dramatically based on market demands. It took several years of working with a variety of suppliers to hone the ingredients that met our taste and texture criteria and that we could consistently rely on being available. As a small producer our clout with larger suppliers has been limited, but we have found vendors that have been consistently open to working with us, providing the ingredients that we built our reputation around. A natural product relies heavily on the quality of each ingredient and the care that goes into growing, harvesting, and processing those ingredients. The way the farmer handles his crop impacts on the taste and smoothness of our product. Mass producing often leads to a level of consistency that may trump quality. As a small company we cannot always demand consistency, but we can demand quality. The inconsistency means that each iteration of a product may be slightly different, but it is still good, like the variations in the petals of a flower that add interest without becoming a distraction.

We are proud of product and pleased that we have been able to maintain our original objectives of producing an affordable, unique, delicious drinking chocolate.