Milwaukee’s Tabal Chocolate: Supporting Cacao Producers

Five years after starting production in his garage chocolate maker Dan Bieser opened the first retail location of Tabal Chocolate & Cacao Products™ (tabal is a Mayan word for ‘relationship’). Located in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa, this organic-certified company is one of the state’s few bean-to-bar chocolate producers and has made a strong commitment to supporting cacao producers.

Leaving School for Chocolate

“I was [previously] a high school principal, and I needed a break from school,” Bieser says. “In the spring of 2012, my friend and I went to Toronto, to ‘hang out’ for four days with ChocoSol chocolate makers and learn the basics of chocolate making. It was not a class, but they were very generous with their time and information sharing.”

He adds, “I came back with cacao beans, started with a small grinder and hand tools, and made chocolate for family and friends. I started in the garage because my wife didn’t want all the smell in the house.” Bieser is currently the sole owner and founder of Tabal; and his friend is no longer making chocolate.

Ramping up took a lot of work and resources. Says Bieser, “In the beginning we had to invent a lot of our own machines, which worked fine at the time. We gradually learned and have been slowly scaling up our equipment. We’ve built up our wholesale business to maybe 60 clients, and slowly grew out of [our initial] space. We have eight employees now. I left my job 10 years ago and our 10-year anniversary was last summer.”

Tabal Chocolate Product Line

Tabal Chocolate’s small-batch gourmet craft chocolate-infused items, incorporate Direct Trade cacao without added soy, gluten, or animal products. The result is vegan, gluten free, organically grown chocolate, for items such as three-ounce Blood Orange 70% bars and cacao nibs, or S’Mores Kits and (seasonal) Hot Chocolate Bombs filled with hot chocolate mix and marshmallows.

The company’s dark chocolate bars include a Columbia 80% Salted Coffee Bar, the 100% Dominican Bar and a huckleberry bar. Tabal also flavors chocolate with almond, chile, chai, raspberry, blood orange, and hazelnut flavors. The Costa Rican Sea Salt bar is a best seller, and the Maraschino bar has been a successful seasonal flavor.

Some bars also feature ‘superfoods,’ such as matcha, peppermint rooibos, Great Lakes Tart Cherry, Patagonia Superberry, and cinnamon, plus several different mushroom bars.

Selling Chocolate Ingredients

Tabal also sells chocolate hazelnut spreads and is currently developing a liquid chocolate that breweries can use. Some individuals and breweries already buy the company’s cocoa nibs. Chocolate teas incorporate the husk of the cocoa bean, plus cocoa butter. They also offer cocoa powder, plus drinking chocolates with 58 to 100 percent cacao.

“I’m not a coffee drinker, so at school I always had to drink hot chocolate that wasn’t the best quality,” Bieser says. “But then I tried drinking chocolate in Europe and thought, ‘Nobody in the Midwest is doing this.’ We make our drinks from chocolate we make right here.”

Commitment to Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Incorporating Direct Trade cacao is important to Bieser. The company works with small-scale cacao farmers-including many who are female-while focusing heavily on social justice and gender equity principles. These farmers grow cacao in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia, Nicaragua, and multiple Peruvian locations.

“I went to Jesuit schools with a very strong social justice focus,” Bieser says. “We pay a premium [to farmers] above the commodity rate. I like to find someone I can work with over the long term, such as Miguel in Columbia; or Edwin, whose cacao is featured in the Costa Rican Sea Salt Bar. We’ve [been involved] with him for about eight years.

“The dream is that farmers we’ve worked with will plant more trees too. On average, cacao trees take three to five years to grow from seedling to fruiting tree, and they are harvested in the spring and fall. Planting thousands of trees takes time, and it also employs some of the next generation of young cacao farmers.

“There’s a lot of deforestation in Columbia. We’re trying to get more cacao trees planted, including Criollo. It’s currently about .01% of all cacao trees in the world, so it can yield a higher price.”

Funds from chocolate-making classes held at Tabal support the cost of planting thousands of cacao trees through the Yariguies Cacao Project in Colombia, including the rare regenerative Criollo tree. “In my classes I tell people ‘Think of the Criollo like the rarest wine in the world,” Bieser says. ”As an educator, one of my goals is to educate the public about chocolate. It’s a big part of what we’re trying to do here.”

A portion of Tabal profits also support charities that benefit small scale cacao farmers. Enliven Cacao helps Nicaraguan farmers to produce, process and export cacao. The organization and Bieser are also committed to helping improve the communities they live in, from adding electricity to a small bakery, or an Internet café.

A second charity that Tabal supports, The Lily Project, provides a health specialist who promotes preventive women’s health and provides healthcare. This is extremely important, and even life-changing, for many Nicaraguan women.

Bieser says Tabal Chocolate & Cacao Products™ continues to expand its product line and business footprint. “Each year we introduce new and exciting unique products and flavors.

“We hope to grow organically, year over year, by building strategic partnerships with cacao farmers, wholesale partners selling chocolate, breweries/distilleries using cacao nibs, and at educational institutions where we will educate the public about cacao as a specialty crop and about the uniqueness and quality of bean to bar craft chocolate.

“The dream is to get a second facility too. It’s time to expand and find [the right] new retail space, which we’ve needed for 4 ½ to 5 years. Five years ago, we produced about three metric tons, annually. We now produce seven to eight tons per year. I think we can at least double what we’re doing now.”