Cacao & Chocolate Consultant
I help cacao and chocolate businesses turn flavour ideas into products that work, from finding the right ingredients to developing and testing the recipe.
Based in Vancouver · Working worldwide, in person or remotely
Start with what you’re trying to figure out.
Cacao → Product
Tasting it properly, side by side with something you know, against the decision you're actually facing: what's genuinely strong, what's merely there, and whether anything's off.
Cacao → Product
Working from the cacao outwards: which of its characteristics survive which formats, and where it would be wasted. A bar, a bonbon and a drink ask very different things of the same chocolate.
Cacao → Product
Every ingredient should amplify, contrast, bridge or deliberately transform something in the chocolate. I look for the pairings that earn their place, and the ones quietly drowning the cacao.
Cacao → Product
Going back to what you expected and why, then working through flavour, balance, texture and process until the gap has a cause rather than a guess.
Cacao → Product
Weighing the ideas against the cacao, the product and the business, then choosing the test that would teach you the most. Fewer, better experiments.
Product → People
Start with the chocolate in their hands, then build the story backwards from what they actually get asked. Plain language, a little science, no lecture.
Open one to hear why.
Flavour isn't decoration you add at the end. Understand what the cacao is giving you before deciding what the product should become.
Describing a cacao is useful. Knowing what that description means for the next product decision is more useful.
Amplify, contrast, bridge or deliberately transform. “Interesting combination” isn't a reason on its own.
Its best expression isn't automatically an untouched dark bar. It might involve dairy, fruit, spice, pastry or a drink. What matters is that the decision has a reason.
Experience doesn't replace testing. It helps decide which test deserves to happen next.
Provenance, fermentation and craft all matter. The person eating it still has to want another bite.
And good chocolate should survive a plain-English explanation.
Ideas, tested in chocolate.
Most projects sit on one side of the line between understanding a cacao and putting it in front of people. Plenty cross it.
Understand it, then decide what it becomesCacao → ProductEvaluating a cacao or chocolate, exploring applications, working out which ingredients belong with it, developing the product, and fixing what isn't behaving.Taste → Interpret → Explore → Apply
Typical projects · CAD $3,500–$12,000+Read more
Make it make sense to someone elseProduct → PeopleGuided tastings and education for the teams, buyers and customers who need to understand why your chocolate is different, in plain English.Taste → Understand → Connect → Tell
Typical projects · CAD $2,500–$7,500+Read more
For an active pipelineOngoing specialist collaborationSeveral cacao or product decisions coming up? It can help to have the same experienced palate across all of them.Shaped around your pipeline
Pricing Scoped individuallyRead more
Not a gallery. The question behind the work, what I noticed, and what changed because of it.
Professional kitchens taught me how ingredients behave. Running chocolate production taught me which ideas survive a real week. Sensory training took me deeper into cacao. Teaching made me explain all of it.
Yes, there's chocolate tattooed on my wrist.
A working notebook: open questions, notes and the occasional long read. Some of it settled, some of it very much not.
How do you decide which flavours in a cacao deserve amplifying?
When does an inclusion reveal more about a chocolate, and when does it cover it up?
What makes one cacao better suited to an application than another?
How much should origin influence the recipe built around a cacao?
Can ingredient relationships be predicted more intelligently before formulation begins?
What should a sales team understand about a cacao before trying to sell it?
Where does sensory description stop being useful and product judgement begin?
Question 01 / 07
No answers yet. Notes hang off these as they're written.
Pick the closest and tell me about it: a few taps and a sentence or two. Every project is scoped once I understand what you're trying to achieve.
