By: Makayla Dilliner
Falling into the world of chocolate creation, it was in college when Butterbaugh as a Spanish major began to delve deep into the scientific and agricultural aspects of the food through the means of experimentation. His local and international award winning product would become known for their unique take on chocolate through a close tie to science and agriculture. Made of Cacao, (the raw form of cocoa, from pods grown on trees is the basis of chocolate), Manoa Chocolate stands apart with their strong philosophy of “Bean to Bar ''.
“We work directly with farmers (from Hawaii and around the world), to source quality cacao at high prices and tell the story of where the chocolate is grown.” But during a party one night, Butterbaugh was given a peek into this new world from a friend who just scratched the surface of the crop as a good fit for Hawaii’s climate. “It turned out that he had recently gotten a job studying cacao as a potentially viable crop for the state of Hawaii,” he said.
“He was looking at things like genetics and post-harvest handling processes, and I would go into this lab where he was studying the fruit. I was just fascinated by the big piles of pods because I had no idea that it was a tree, that it was a fruit, and that it tasted really sweet on the exterior. The pulp went through this fermentation process and turned into something like chocolate,” he explained.
After working in the labs for months on end, it soon became time for Butterbaugh to embark on a journey of passion, discovery and sweetness. “I kept doing it with him for about four months for fun in between my classes and after school, and then I'd give them away to my friends and family.” And although being an entrepreneur was not on his checklist during his early years in college, it soon became his life. “I didn't know what an entrepreneur was. I didn't know what people studied in business school. It didn't make any sense to me.”
“But I threw myself head in, head first, and started to make chocolate at my parents' house after I'd graduated, and then ended up slowly growing my business.”
“After moving into a small retail space above Cinnamon's, we then took over the unit next door before then taking over a space down the road and getting a very big loan. Got some bigger machines, and now I've just kept doing the same thing. It's just at a much bigger scale now,” he explained.
But to Butterbaugh, more important than the journey of Manoa Chocolate, lies the journey of the factory and cacao from tree to chocolate. With every aspect came persistence. “There's quite a bit that goes into it before we even receive it. The genetics matter, what you plant. Then it matters when it's harvested. You've got to harvest it at the right time, when there's a lot of sugar in the fruit and the seed.”
“On the exterior, it's kind of like lychee. It has this white, fleshy pulp, and you want to get it when it's at its sweetest, oftentimes, so that when you then load the fermentation box, all those sugars are going to be consumed by wild yeast and converted to alcohol. So that's an important step.”
Just like in growing his business, came trial after trial in creating the perfect balance of sweetness and flavor. “If it's underripe, you're not gonna have enough sugar. If it's overripe, you're not gonna have enough sugar. The sugar is the fuel that helps the fermentation, and the fermentation helps to make a lot of these precursors to flavor that we would recognize as chocolate.”
“And only then, when it's dried to like a 6 to 8 percent moisture, would I receive it and begin my chocolate making process.” Each store doubling as a factory, produces each and every piece of chocolate in-house. After grinding the beans and processing, the chocolate is then molded into a bar with the recognizable Manoa Chocolate logo, and then readied for distribution.
Due to the intimate and extensive process that happens right behind the scenes, Manoa Chocolate soon began offering tours of the operation. “Nine months later because of the ability to scale up, we were able to get our first wholesale account with Whole Foods,” Butterbaugh stated in his film with Honolulu Creative Media.
Crossing lines far and wide, Manoa Chocolate can be found in countries like Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada. The importance of controlling the quality of the chocolate starts with farming. Which later led to Butterbaugh being able to grow his own cacao in Waialua. “The secret to making the best chocolate starts with growing the best cacao. It all starts with farming.”
In an effort to share with others what he has learned and the impact he has made Butterbaugh continues to expand not only his number of factories but his passion for the product. “I love who I'm working with and I love what I do. I really enjoy being able to share what weʻve learned so far to help grow our industry in the best possible way and be a resource for everyone else out there.”