Chaitanya Muppala’s family owns Hyderabad’s popular Almond House, which has been making mithais and snacks for years. It’s after running the company successfully for a decade that he ventured into the fabulous world of chocolate. Manam means we or us in Telugu. Unlike the popular ‘bean-to bar’ concept that’s usually used to describe craft chocolate, Chaitanya describes his brand as a “pod-to-bean-to endless chocolate confectionery…”
From cacao farming, fermenting, chocolate making to creating a collection of confections, the brand offers a fresh take on Indian chocolate. The process begins at Manam Chocolate’s sister concern Distinct Origins, where they partner with a network of over 100 member farmers cultivating over 1,500 acres of cacao farms in the West Godavari District, AP (the largest cacao growing region in India as per the Directorate of Cashewnut and Cocoa Development) With a dedicated, state-of-the-art Cacao Fermentery and and immersive store spread over 10,000 sq. ft. it hopes to put Indian cacao and chocolate on the global map.
Photo Credit: Hashim Badani
At the Manam Chocolate Karkhana that sits on a prime spot in Hyderabad’s Banjara Hills, chocolate lovers are treated to bars in unusual flavours, pastries, cakes, macarons, freshly baked croissants, soft serve ice creams and a lot more. Watching the swirling chocolate can be therapeutic.
When asked why he started from scratch and focused on how to grow the crop he has an interesting answer. “I realised that anybody who's doing anything with chocolate is buying chocolate, they're not making it. They're buying it from the same two or three multinational companies in a bag. Which is around when we started learning and reading about how chocolate is actually made, small batch chocolate making, craft chocolate and this whole, “bean to bar" movement that was happening,” Chaitanya explains.
Photo Credit: Hashim Badani
“Your chocolate is only as good as your beans are. Where are all the beans coming from? And we realised that that's why craft chocolate in India isn't very good, because our beans are not very good,” he adds. This led to the team spending the next three years amongst farmers where they identified the genetic problem. They built technology to solve that problem. “We compensated for the lack of fine flavour genetics with a very evolved post-harvest processing. We created this bean and built this capacity. We start from a fruit. Then we make chocolate from these beans. Finally we make this world of confection from that chocolate.”
Photo Credit: Daniel D'Souza
Apart from the recent International recognition Manam Chocolate also won several awards at the Academy of Chocolate Awards, 2023, UK and the International Chocolate Award instituted by International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting. Excerpts from the chat:
What does this global recognition mean for Manam Chocolate and for the Indian craft chocolate space?
It's a form of validation. But, one is that, what are we trying to do? We are trying to create a name for Indian craft chocolate. And because we are a business, we are trying to own that. But, we are trying to create a reputation. Indian chocolate is not a thing. And we know that it's going to be a decade or two's work building that out. Because we are competing against centuries of Belgian and Swiss and French chocolates. So, it eases out the friction a little bit. It's great to be recognised on a global platform.
Photo Credit: Daniel D'Souza
Why do Indian bakers and confectioners not get their due often, on International platforms?
I think the challenge with the whole baking and the patisserie scene is that everybody who's trying to make a name there is still adopting a European style. What is Indian about it? Apart from the fact that they may have added Kesar-Elaichi-Badam, how does one put their Indian-ness into it in a way that embraces the complexity of what it means to be Indian today.
For example Manam Chocolate Karkhana didn't make it to the 100 Greatest Places to Visit as a European-style chocolate cafe. It made it to the list as the chocolate experience place that positions itself as Indian, works with Indian cacao and is a brand built by Indians and is built for us as Indians. We tend to reduce ourselves into chocolate samosa or a chocolate rasgulla. Or we go the other way and say, look, this is exotic, this is Belgian! In that, we pander to European sensibilities.
Photo Credit: Siddharth Govindan
Why has there been a hype about Belgian chocolate?
Chocolate has always been something that was produced in the colony and consumed by the coloniser. The whole Belgian chocolate is a reflection of the colonial past of this commodity. Belgians were conquerors, right? And chocolate evolved into something that is industrial in nature. Primarily because you needed this huge sort of grip on global supply chains. You need control of governments, on producing countries.That's why it became the dominion of European colonists.
Photo Credit: Daniel D'Souza
What drew you to this complex world of chocolate ?
We were halwais and we wanted to do something with chocolate. Gifting, sharing and consuming sweet things, like we have been doing with mithai, is anyway happening with more contemporary and by way of that Western categories. Why should we not interpret it for ourselves? Unlike any other craft movement, like specialty coffee or wine, those movements happen elsewhere in the world and in India, we only had a chance to mimic or catch up much later. Craft chocolate is so nascent globally that we have an opportunity to lead and we have a good chance of success, not in spite of being in India, but because of it.
Photo Credit: Hashim Badani
The farmer community that is so closely involved in this. When the chocolate wins an award somewhere, what sort of validation does it bring to them?
One of the beautiful things about our naming system is that when we won an award for a single farmer bar. That was made with cacao grown by Mr. GVS Prasad. Our award entry, we entered it as farm tablet number 3, Mr. GVS Prasad. So the certificate for the award has his name on it. So it's a certificate for him in that way. It was really nice to go and give him that certificate. It came with his name on it. Farmers are proud people. It helps when the world recognises that everything that we eat starts on a farm. We tend to forget that.
Photo Credit: Hashim Badani
There has been a lot of talk regarding the alarming rise in cacao prices. What’s your take on it?
Cacao price went up at its peak in the last 9-10 months to almost 300% over last year. It got triggered by the fact that the global projection for cacao output this year was 20% lower than last year. That is primarily because of a bad harvest season caused by El Nino weather conditions and the black pod disease in Ivory Coast and Ghana.
Ivory Coast and Ghana produce 60% of the world's cacao. That made the price rise, but it doesn't explain a 300% hike in price. Also, it's not that this high price means that the farmer is benefiting from it. When cacao hit $10,000 a metric tonne on the global exchange rates, farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana were still only getting paid $2400 a tonne.
In our model, in fact, the farmer gains from it tremendously. Our farmer checks the price on Google, on Nasdaq, and that's how we strike a price. But in West Africa, the farmers didn't really gain from this. I don't see it that much as a price hike, as a price correction. this has been a crop that has been historically underpaid for. So for a couple of years, if you're paying something more reasonable, it shouldn't hurt as much.