TCHO (pronounced "cho") gives California its second bean-to-bar company after Scharffen Berger, which arguably is responsible for initiating this small-scale bean-to-bar trend in America. TCHO was started by Timothy Childs, a space shuttle technologist, and Louis Rossetto, co-founder of Wired Magazine (the "T" stands for technology, the CHO for chocolate). Where TCHO also differs is in its marketing and product development strategy. Rather than hire a focus group to tweak a chocolate's flavor to perfection, or use their own palates, as the other microbatch producers do, TCHO conducts public "beta testing," a product development process that allows the purchasers to give feedback that the company uses to refine the product.
USA (San Francisco, California)