About Us
Hey, I’m Evan. I’m the one on the left. The old guy on the right is my dad, Brant.
We started making chocolate in our kitchen in 2021.
We’re both lactose intolerant and started trying to cut out sugar in 2019. So no dairy and no sugar… hmm, guess that leaves chocolate out of the equation.
Chocolate’s been a go-to treat for the both of us for a while, so we wanted to find a way to eat it without feeling horrible.
That meant no dairy, no sugar, and no artificial additives or sweeteners.
Evan (left) and Brant (right). The two Friesens behind 712Chocolate.
How We Got Here
In the beginning, the chocolate we made wasn’t great. We started to see why the big companies use the ingredients they do - they taste good and they’re easy to work with.
It started in a pot on the stovetop. Eventually, we upgraded to the real-deal chocolate-making equipment. Now we’re working with a proper tempering machine, melanger, and roaster.
But to make great chocolate, it’s about the ingredients, not just the gear. So we upgraded from off-the-shelf cocoa powder to raw cacao beans right from South America and Africa.
The process took quite a while to nail down. But now we’ve got it pretty much figured, and the chocolate that comes out of our facility in Corman Park is top-tier. Here’s a quick breakdown of the process:
The raw cacao beans are sorted and defects are removed.
The beans are then roasted (this part is an art, by the way. A slightly different roast can create a hugely different flavour).
The shells of the cacao beans are cracked off and removed.
The roasted cacao beans are ground up with some extra cacao butter (for texture) in the melanger for 48-72 hours.
The honey is added.
The mixture gets moulded into bars.
Bars are hand-packaged and sent off to the store, ready to enjoy.
Melanger (to grind the chocolate)
Roaster