I subscribe to a ton of content on the old interweb. So much infact that I was in NYC for a few days without my computer and came home to 1957 articles to read in my Google Reader….one of the articles that caught my eye was about TCHO Chocolate.

TCHO is a different kind of chocolate company since you order it online but have to pick it up in person!

The Reveries “Cool News of the Day” article explains :

Louis Rosetto, a co-founder of Wired, says his latest venture, Tcho, “is where Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco food culture,” reports Katie Hafner in The New York Times (12/10/07). Tcho puts Louis in the chocolate business, although his first item, a 50-gram bar, selling for $4, is only in “beta,” and is known as Version .10. You can order it online (here), but in a low-tech twist, you have to pick up your order at the factory, which is located on Pier 17 in San Francisco. Louis notes that it is the only chocolate factory in San Francisco.

That’s because other chocolate makers don’t actually make their chocolate. “A lot of people think companies like See’s and Godiva are chocolate makers, but they’re not,” says Louis. “They’re confectioners who take someone else’s chocolate and do something with it.” Louis and his business partner, Timothy Childs, have instead invested in building a real chocolate factory, using equipment acquired from a factory that had been located “in an old castle in Wernigerode, in the former East Germany.”

I love to see people putting new ideas into conventional business plans. If I find myself in the bay area (and I think I will be in the springtime) I will definitely check this out!

-saul