The end of Perfect Fit Chocolate

Perfect Fit Chocolate started the way a lot of businesses have.  I actually wanted to start a business, or at least to own a successful one.  I had been looking around for something to buy and talking to friends about ideas for a business to start.  At the same time, I had some huge changes in my life.  I changed job roles and went from standing and walking all day to sitting, but I didn't change my eating habits, especially with regards to chocolate.  And I started putting on a lot of weight.  A co-worker suggested the keto diet.  He had recently gone through the Duke keto diet program and it worked really well for him.  So I tried it.  I mean, how hard is a diet of steak and bacon?  But I couldn't give up chocolate.  I tried various diet chocolates and they were all awful.  Then the serendipity happened.  I love to cook, and I had been an organic chemist for most of my life, so I thought, how hard could it be to make my own diet chocolate?  And the journey began.  

I started making chocolate with the help of John Nanci at Chocolate Alchemy.  It took months to find the used equipment I could afford and work through each step.  There's a pretty big learning curve.  Some parts of making chocolate are science and easy (or at least predictable), and some are art, and those aren't so easy.  It was all so much fun, and making chocolate just smells wonderful.  I started making so much chocolate using beans from all over the world that I started giving it away at work.  That's when co-workers started telling me that the chocolate was good enough that they would pay for it.  So the business I was looking for was born.  It took another year to figure everything out and get the home food process permits, but I did it and I started selling chocolate.  This was in 2018.  I still remember the first time that a store said that they would stock my chocolate.  I eventually got into 5 local stores, and then covid hit.  All of my stores were small local stores, and most of them actually went under during covid and never came back.  Marketing was never what I wanted to do, I just wanted to make chocolate.  I was selling online, but not enough to cover the monthly costs.  And then my fiancée got a job in another state and we decided to move.  It just wasn't worth restarting the business in another state. 

So I closed the business.  It was so much fun to do, especially in the beginning.  I remember how excited I was when Hershey placed an order.  I'm sure they do it to all small chocolate businesses that have some unique niche, but I was still amazing.  I worked with some great people to design the labels and the websites.  I met wonderful people at chocolate trade shows.  It was a blast.  But it's done for now.  Bye!

Peter

chocolate@perfectfitchocolate.com