Chocri Announces U.S. Launch -- Customized Chocolate Bars from Berlin

Recently I wrote about the move of Zazzle into the German market. Now a German mass customization company moves to the US, chocri (www.chocri.de). The URL for the US site will be http://www.createmychocolate.com.

The company only recently came to my closer awareness when it won an entrepreneurship award by WirtschaftsWoche, a German business weekly, for their concept of personalized chocolate bars. It is one of the ten or more recent start-ups in Germany which were inspired by MyMuesli to enter the market of mass customized food.

The idea behind the chocri chocolate bar is simple: consumers can choose their chocolate base (dark, milk, or white), and then select "toppings" of their choice to personalize their chocolate bar. Toppings include both the traditional (nuts and dried fruit) and the outrageous (coriander and chives)! Upon checkout, customers can then choose to create a personalized name for their chocolate bar as well as select their wrapping paper.

I have to admit that I am still skeptical about the sustainable value of this business concept, but I am more than happy to accept that I am wrong and that this kind of food is a future of mass customization.

For me, it starts to get interesting when the functional or nutrition value of the food can be adopted to a person's nutrition requirements. But in the moment, hedonistic offerings rule the market, many of them in the field of gifts and presents.

Chocri hopes to benefit from the continuous mass customization trend in the U.S. and will start selling customized chocolate to U.S. consumers in January 2010.

In a press release, co-founders Michael Bruck and Franz Duge say, "Since chocri was launched, we always believed in developing a close relationship with our customers, who are the true creators of chocri; and so this award is not only a recognition of our hard work, but also the generous contribution of our early fans and supporters."

By constantly polling its customers for new ideas on toppings and flavors, chocri has established itself as a receptive, engaging brand that encourages its customers to be involved in the company's decision-making process and growth.

The young start-up, based in Berlin, has already sold 120,000 of its bars since launching last year (about 600-2000 a day, for prices between 3 and 8 Euros), and declares its revenue to be in the mid-six digits.

Comments

[caller unknown]

Wouldn't that be a dream to have any kind of food tailored to our needs! hey you may be right about it being a hedonistic world though, every day I see a lot of self indulgence.

[Jonathan Miller]

While I hear your concerns on novelty, I think a customizable brand can also have 2 other important value propositions: freshness and taste. One of the core values at our company, Element Bars, is that users can receive their bar in 7-10 days rather than consuming a bar that spends 2-3 months in the distribution channel before even making it to the store shelf.

[twitter.com/chocridotcom]

Dear Prof. Piller,
Thanks for the note!
I agree with your 1) and 2), but what about 3) Everyday consumption? I personally had a favorite chocolate brand, but now that I can create *exactly* what I want with higher quality rather than having to buy off the shelf - my chocolate for everyday consumption became chocri (clearly I'm biased - but we see that apply to others).
Just as I didn't buy miAdidas shows for novelty, but because I expect to run better in them.
And finally, for novelty: chocri allows for more than 10 billion combinations - isn't each of them a "novelty" in itself?

Thank you.
Carmen

[Frank Piller]

Hi Carmen, Thanks for the comment ... it was a pity that you could not participate at the MCPC 2009 conference in Helsinki, where we discussed these topics in depth.

I am talking about the economic sustainability of this concept (the ecological is another question). For me, custom chocolate taps into two markets: 1) Novelty seeking, i.e. I just customize a chocolate to see if this could work. The product itself is not so important, but the concept itself. 2) Market for customized gifts. This is a large opportunity, but how often will I gift a custom chocolate bar? Max. once to every friend? ... So there are natural boarders for these kind of hedonistic products ... but until they are reached, however, there are of course some market potentials left.

[twitter.com/chocridotcom]

Thanks so much for the mention, Professor Piller! My name is Carmen, and I am working on chocri's expansion to the U.S.

Your feedback is of course highly appreciated, and we are honored that you portrayed us here. Are you available for a dialogue? I would especially love to learn more about what prompted your comment regarding the sustainability of this concept. If you would, please email me at carmen AT chocri.com.

We also invite all your readers to visit our blog on www.createmychocolate.com/blog and to leave comments, or also to just email me - your thoughts are highly appreciated.