Small Business: French technique meets Pacific passion with Coromandel Chocolate

Thomas Capdevielle, director and chocolatier of Coromandel Chocolate, trained in his craft in France before moving to Whangamatā.

Thomas Capdevielle, director of Coromandel Chocolate, talks to Tom Raynel about studying chocolate making in France, and why the call of the coast brought him home. Each Monday, we interview a small business owner, which is now a regular feature of NZME’s editorial campaign On The Up, showcasing uplifting stories of success, inspiration and possibilities.

What is Coromandel Chocolate?

We are a family-owned business nestled in picturesque Whangamatā. We create delectable bean-to-bar chocolate with traditional French methods. Using exceptional Pacific-sourced cacao beans, our artisanal chocolates are crafted with love for the people of Aotearoa and beyond.

The difference between us and the bigger industry players is we are actually making chocolate from the bean. I’ve got a business partner who owns a share of Coromandel Chocolate and I own a share of a plantation in Vanuatu so that we can grow cacao together.

What inspired you to start the business?

I had a passion for chocolate growing up, but I actually studied law for four years. One of my best friends back home, his family owns a chocolate factory in Bordeaux with a really good reputation. We would work there over winter to finance surf trips we would go on, but I never considered it as a career.

I came to Whangamatā about 15 years ago because of a few connections I had here. I spent a few months here and met my now wife who is the mother of my kids. While I was here I realised that New Zealand had no small chocolate artisans. Back home in France we’ve got butchers, we’ve got fisherman, and we’ve got chocolate makers in every single town of every single village.

I just thought that it’s crazy that New Zealand has zero. So I went back home and studied chocolate making for five years to get some experience before coming back to New Zealand.

Coromandel Chocolate sources its raw cacao from a plantation in Vanuatu, adhering to founder Thomas Capdevielle's vision of supporting Pacific cacao farmers.

You have a cacao plantation in Vanuatu?

The whole purpose for me to make chocolate in New Zealand, being based in the Pacific, is to support cacao from the region. It doesn’t make any sense for New Zealanders to eat chocolate coming from anywhere else. Those growers over there need our support, and they grow the most outstanding cacao, whether it’s Fiji, Samoa or Papua New Guinea.

I realised with a lot of years of experience that the more you order from the same place, the more change you’re actually bringing to it. These days you see a lot of chocolate makers making single origin, using a little bit of cacao from 20 different places. But unfortunately, and we all know in the industry, if you order 100kg from here and 100kg from there, you do not change the life of those people at all.

The plantation we use is small, but it’s got a big capacity for production. When we were starting, the first container we sent was 500kg, so the container was half full. We now bring three full containers here to New Zealand and the first container heading for Europe left just last month.

What separates a chocolate maker from a chocolatier?

I compare our industry to wine. My dad is a winemaker and I’m from a really small famous town in the southwest of France which grows and makes beautiful wine.

Imagine you’re going to a house in France and you listen to this person telling you how beautiful this wine is, but looking out the window you can’t see vineyards. Then the person says they don’t grow any grapes here, nor do they process grapes, they just buy juice already made in Europe and rebottle it. If people heard that, I don’t think they’d be willing to spend as much money or take as much consideration from that work. Chocolate is much the same.

Our legislation allows chocolatiers to communicate by saying “made in New Zealand” when it should actually be “transformed in New Zealand”.

Coromandel Chocolate is an artisan bean-to-bar chocolate maker based in Whangamatā. The business uses unique flavours in its products, including manuka honey, Opito Bay salt and roasted Hojicha tea.

You perform tours around your factory, was this always the plan?

Always. Many people have no clue how many steps it takes for cacao to be transformed into chocolate. A lot of stuff has to be moulded and tempered and packaged.

We designed our facility in a way to be able to bring transparency and provide education when people step in the shop. We’ve got a retail store with a massive glass window looking through at all the machinery. It’s such a good feeling for us trademen to share our knowledge and educate people around the products again.

What would be your advice to a budding entrepreneur wanting to start a business?

Find something you love and fight for it. People will try to put you out of it and say it won’t pay off, but just respect it as you do with yourself and go hard. Patience is also something I’ve got the most feedback on. If you’ve got the luck to find patience for something in your life, just go hard for it.

Do you have a small business story you want to share? Send your pitches to tom.raynel@nzme.co.nz.

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.