How Lillie Belle Farms Became a True Rock Star Chocolatier
Jeff Shepherd of Lillie Belle Farms
Jeff Shepherd of Lillie Belle Farms has not always been a chocolate maker. He was a chef who worked with Wolfgang Puck, a fishing boat deckhand, a program director of a radio station, a farmer, and a Grateful Dead t-shirt seller. Those roles might seem disparate, but explains Shepherd, “I am, at my core, an artist; I see chocolate as another medium of expression; not just a food stuff.”
Shepherd has spent the last 21 years turning chocolate into art, from the way he crafts it, to the stories and packaging that go with every confection. But it wasn’t a foregone conclusion; several choice moments led to the establishment of Lillie Belle Farms.
Inspired by the Farm
Raspberry Cordial chocolates photo courtesy of Lillie Belle Farms
Chocolate wasn’t at the forefront of his mind when he moved to Central Point, Oregon, less than 40 miles from the California border. “I found this cute little run down berry farm in this little pocket Valley in Southern Oregon. I thought well this is cute. Let's do this. Maybe I'll be a gentleman farmer and then teach myself how to plant and grow berries,” he explains.
But he soon found that there were a lot of berries. They were picking 30-40 flats of berries—strawberries, raspberries, marionberries, and more— a day. He sold them at a farmstand right outside his home and then the farmer’s market. “There were so many berries. I'm like: ‘I got to do something with all these berries.’ And I thought well I'll make some chocolates. I'll make some raspberry truffles and people really liked them,” he said. Then came orange, coffee bean, and his personal favorite, black pepper truffles that he sold from the trunk of his car at the farmer’s market. That’s when he officially incorporated Lillie Belle Farms, named after his wife and daughter.
From Chef to Chocolatier
He had experience working with chocolate after spending about 25 years as a chef. “When I worked as a pastry chef or dessert chef, it was always the chocolate desserts that sold out first,” Shepherd explained. Intrigued, he decided he wanted to figure out how to make one of those fancy boxes of chocolates, which he adored.
“It was one of those great culinary challenges. How do you make a box of fancy chocolates? Well, first you buy boxes of fancy chocolates from all over the world and you eat them. You make notes and you dissect them and you reverse engineer them and play with it until it makes you happy,” he explained but it helped teach him how to do it.
But he soon learned that parking lots and chocolate were bad bedfellows. Shepherd said, “I was well known at the farmers market for an empty booth and just sitting on an ice chest,” asking if people wanted to try the chocolate hidden within.
But it worked. Some guys came to the market, bought some chocolate, and returned the following week and said they were really good. If he was to package them, label the ingredients, they could sell the truffles at their store. That’s exactly what he did. He had to figure out how to create a wholesale product, figuring out how to correctly label and obtain the right licensing from the state. That jump started Shepherd to make a website so he could sell his chocolates over the internet.
Lillie Belle Farms Grows Up
The Lillie Belle Farms Artisan Chocolate Shop
Lillie Belle just kept growing. He moved out of his home kitchen, into a property in town that he turned into a chocolate factory. He even hired employees, which he described as really weird to be an employer.
Soon an inspector from the Department of Agriculture told him that his sales surpassed limits for a home based business. He had six months to find a commercial kitchen for Lillie Belle. Shepherd had to figure out how to do that, including writing a business plan to get a small business loan, which he received.
Shepherd started traveling to the New York Chocolate Show, which started generating some more press for him. CBS Sunday Morning stopped by his booth and tried one of his chocolates, remarking that it “does taste like Christmas” which resulted in the website “exploding.” So Shepherd kept coming back to the show. “If there was a little camera pointed my way and that little red light came on, I was on and was not shy about it,” he said.
Shepherd recalled that Jacques Torres, famous French chocolatier of self-named brand, tried his truffles and later came back, “You know, you can buy a raspberry puree; you do not have to grow your own raspberries. You're making the rest of us look bad.” At the time, farm to table had not hit the mainstream. However, he has since left berry farming behind since chocolate required so much of his time.
He also started doing bean to bar, long before it became popular. He just wanted better chocolate so he started searching around the world. After trial and error, he eventually decided to source cocoa beans directly from all over the world from places like Colombia, Tanzania, and Nigeria, to name a few. “I know it's a big thing now—bean to bar is everything now— but man, it was me and there were only probably about eight people doing it in the United States at the time.” Now he’s lost count of the number of bean-to-bar chocolatiers and chocolate makers today but he doesn’t pay attention anymore.
Smokey Blue Cheese Truffles
In addition to truffles, Shepherd makes chocolate bars, Smokey Blue Cheese Truffles (read more about cheese candies), lavender salt caramels, drinking chocolates and much more. However, due to scalability, not all products that Lillie Belle makes are available online; some are only available in store.
Some of his bars have great origin stories. For instance, there is one bar called “Do Not Eat This Chocolate,” made with milk and dark chocolate and ghost chilies, Aji Amarillo chilies, and Chili Arbol. Shepherd made it for the Golden Chili competition in Texas. “All I wanted to do is win their contest. So I made this chocolate bar so I couldn't eat it. It just hurts,” he said. When he submitted the chocolate bar, he wrote “Do Not Eat This Chocolate” on the bar, which was what they wrote on the trophy when I took first place for chocolate. And that’s the name that stuck.”
I Love Rock 'n' Roll
Lillie Belle chocolate bars photo credit Christina Pei
While most people don’t think of rock and roll and chocolate, Shepherd brings together his loves. “Rock and roll is my life, I've been playing music for 45 years. I have to play guitar all the time every day,” he said. His first business was selling Grateful Dead t-shirts to head shops across the US.
But becoming the chocolatier to the rock stars isn’t a guarantee. When he managed a radio station in Hawaii, he learned that one of the board members was Tom Petty’s manager. Even after he moved to Oregon, he kept in contact with his contacts. When Tom Petty came to the region, Shepherd was invited to the show, and brought chocolate with him. Everytime they came nearby, they’d invite him to shows and ask him to bring chocolate. He’s supplied the dressing rooms for many rock legends, from Bob Dylan to Widespread Panic (though he cannot confirm nor deny if Bob Dylan has tried his chocolate). Lillie Belle Farms also sponsors and provides chocolate to the High Sierra Music Festival.
On top of it all, his chocolate bars take a page out of the Grateful Dead playbook. His bars are wrapped in bright pinks and blues that almost seem like tie-dye with names like “Perfect Illusion” and “Dark Star.”
When he had his farmer’s market stand, he quoted one of their songs but when he knew Lillie Belle was getting more visibility, he decided he needed to ask permission from the band to use parts of song lyrics. When he had a chance to see Robert Hunter, singer and songwriter and lyricist for the Grateful Dead, Shepherd asked if a box of chocolates and a note asking permission could be passed to him. “He wrote me a really nice letter saying, ‘Oh, my God, I love being quoted, I hate getting ripped off. Because the fact that you've actually asked me for permission, go forth and prosper young man. Knock yourself out.’”
When asked what he’s learned over his varied career, Shepherd shares, “That chocolate, for some people, is an absolute necessity....not a luxury....” Is it a necessity for Shepherd too? After briefly putting his business up for sale, he’s signed another lease and shares that he will be around for a bit longer. Chocolate lovers and rock stars can breathe a sigh of relief.