Community Highlights: Meet Patrick and Mara Tcheunou of Bibamba Artisan Chocolate

Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick and Mara Tcheunou.

Patrick and Mara, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
We are a husband and wife small business in Denver, Colorado. When we fell in love and started a family in 2013, we didn’t expect to be starting a global chocolate business a few years later. Patrick grew up in Cameroon, West-Central Africa, and met Mara in Denver. We both had an entrepreneurial spirit and always wanted to start a business together. After Patrick heard reports of a potential chocolate shortage, it sparked the idea to start our own farm from the beginning. Cacao and chocolate have always been one of Patrick’s favorite foods, and he had childhood memories of visiting his grandparents’ farms in the summer. In 2015, we purchased our farm, and in 2016 planted the seeds of our cacao trees along with plantain, mango, and avocado trees to promote biodiversity. We believe that making a difference in the world starts with investing in great products and business practices. From the start, we have been committed to paying fair wages to our farmers, providing health insurance for our full-time employees on the farm, and never using child labor.

It takes about 4-5 years for the trees to start producing, so we were lucky enough to have our first harvest in 2020. The uncertainty of the pandemic led us to start experimenting with our beans and we eventually dreamt up our first product line, Bibamba chocolate, a crunchy, crispy, and rich chocolate bark. We produce our three flavors with plantains, coconut, and ground roasted coffee in our commercial kitchen in Denver. You can catch us at local farmer’s markets, purchase online, or find us at a local shop in Colorado.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Starting a business will always have bumps in the road. The pandemic has been a major struggle for all businesses in some way or another. Our first business model was to sell our beans to other chocolate makers, with the uncertainty of 2020, we started to experiment with our beans and learn how to make high-quality chocolate and created Bibamba chocolate. We have also learned a lot about owning and operating an international business. From ensuring our farm stays healthy without using chemicals to exporting and importing our beans from Cameroon to the United States to learning the craft of chocolate making, there have definitely been bumps and lessons that have been learned. We love continuing to grow and find ways to improve our business and solve any struggles that come our way!

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Bibamba is chocolate that works for everybody. From when we planted our cacao farm in 2016 to today, Bibamba has valued sustainable practices, education, and transparency every step of the way. By ethically and sustainably growing our cacao, mindfully sourcing high-quality ingredients from local Coloradan suppliers, and working to raise the standards of the chocolate industry with fair wages and no child labor used, we are contributing to a better world.

It is very common that you hear the term “Bean to Bar” chocolate, meaning the chocolate maker sources their beans, does the roasting and processing of the chocolate. We call our process “Seed to Chocolate” because we go a step further and actually grow the cacao and can control the quality of the beans from the start. Bibamba chocolate is made with Trinitario cacao beans that have a powerfully rich, earthy, and dried fruit flavor. Less than 10% of chocolate produced around the world is made with beans from the Trinitario variety. We offer three unique chocolate varieties: Plantain Crisp, which we actually grow the plantains on our farm that provide shade for the cacao trees, Coconut Crisp, and Ground Roasted Coffee, which is sourced from local roasters in Denver and Boulder.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Denver is amazing. We cannot complain about living in Colorado, we are very lucky. We love the culture of the people and the support for small businesses. There are so many amazing local spots such as Amethyst Coffee, Queen City Coffee Collective, Hoja restaurant, Ruby’s Market, Moxi Poppy, Paul’s Coffee Shop, St. Kilian’s Cheese Shop, and many more places – it’s the foodie’s heaven. One thing that we like least about the city is the poor public transportation.

Pricing:

• $12 a bag on our online store, free shipping included

Contact Info:

• Email: info@bibamba.com
• Website: https://bibamba.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bibambachocolate/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bibambachocolate/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay5L1_srNuk