With the passing of Cindy, my wife and business partner, we have been doing a lot of reflection. Priorities seem silly when your best friend of 30 years passes. But I know Cindy wanted us to continue. 2021 will bring about change, the first one is simplification. Effective today, 27-January, we are closing our Bentonville store. We have been in Bentonville for 2-1/2 years. Yet Covid has taken a toll on retail. This will not impact KYYA employees. We will continue to manufacturer 4.5 metric tons of chocolate each month in Elm Springs and excited about our new coffee shop/bakery inside the Tontitown Once Upon a Time Books that leverages our award winning chocolate. We are excited to announce that the Bentonville...
As a team, we are thankful 2020 is over. While covid-19 impacted heavy on our retail operations, our syrup business actually grew. We are very thankful for the new retailers and customers that have purchased from us. Our biggest impact in 2020 was the loss of my wife, Cindy, to colon cancer on October 27 after a 2 year fight. Cindy was a mom, sister, wife and business partner. Cindy and I were married almost 30 years. Cindy was a strong, quiet, behind the scenes person. We miss her very much. Her passing came along in the busiest time of the year and without our KYYA team, I don't know how we would have made it. We are getting ready...
First off - thanks. We are overwhelmed with what has happened over the past 90 days. Let's see, over 3,000 school kids have toured the factory, eaten chocolate and gotten a glimpse into a small team making some of the best chocolate around. We've created 45 new chocolates this year, added 50 new retailers and exhibited over 250 events. Prior to Kyya, we spent 25 years in manufacturing, sales, engineering and operations (XBOX), which has given us a unique perspective to create a truly innovative factory (with 7 chocolate conches aka chocolate making machines with 2 more on order). We built our own cacao roaster because we had built custom ovens at Baxter Healthcare early in our career and wanted to bring our process expertise to chocolate. ...
We must get this question 100 times a week. We make or craft chocolate, starting with cacao beans from 12 countries, and follow a 12 step process converting beans to various forms of chocolate. We are FDA approved food manufacturer. We make 104 unique bars, each with subtle nuances and variations you will only find in hand crafted chocolate manufacturing. Each step builds on the previous, and with minimal automation, most are done by hand including the molding and packaging. Why artisan you might ask? Because the big chocolate companies have equipment that is cost prohibitive and doesn't make financial sense until you get to a bigger operation. How do you compete with the larger companies? We can't and don't. We have...
It's hard to believe this is year 5 of Kyya Chocolate. I remember the first year, when we were trying to figure how to sell a chocolate bar. Our first year sales were $5,500. It was discouraging. My quota at Dell Computer was $40,000,000 annually. I remember being up late at night or maybe it was early in the morning, and nothing worked, it was too hot, too humid, the temperer acting up and I just wanted to quit. But grit persevered. I remember early on when we visited Askinoise and Mast Brothers, leaders in the craft chocolate industry, and was blown away (and still are with both of them). Now, 5 years later, we have hit our stride....
