January 3rd, 2020
We had an intense and wonderful 2019. ChocZero started at the very end of 2016 and officially launched on social media in March of 2017, making this month the first month of our third year as a company!
2019 was extremely exciting for retail. We launched in Whole Foods in the Southwest region along with many other smaller chains you know and love, like Lassen's and Crest Market. We also launched in Vons, Albertson's, and Pavilions in Orange County. Online, we expanded to iHerb and Netrition to help meet your online shopping needs. We're in over 195 retail stores in a total of six states now and we hope to grow to more in 2020, possibly even launching our own chocolate shop in the Los Angeles area this Spring!
2019 was also exciting for our social media. We went from celebrating 100k followers on Instagram in August 2018 to celebrating over 240k followers this December 2019. It's been amazing seeing our smaller social media profiles grow too, with our Facebook community tripling its size in a year.
On Instagram, we launched our IGTV series starring Annie from KetoFocus. This also allowed us to finally launch recipes on ChocZero.com along with a brand new YouTube channel where we're reposting recipes for easy access. We have a new site layout coming which will make recipes more openly available to people in the future!
On the product front, the first and arguably most important thing is that we finally solved the majority of our supply issues from 2018. It's hard as a tiny but fast-growing company because sourcing quality ingredients takes time - and if you aren't big enough to throw a lot of money quickly into suppliers, they often wait-list you to get increased volumes of those high quality ingredients! But our work paid off and we were able to make sure Keto Bark was in stock for the majority of 2019. We could then focus on adding more products to the ChocZero name and brought back Peppermint Keto Bark in early November, and added Pecan Keto Bark flavor in milk and dark to the bark's list of flavors. Speaking of bringing flavors, we brought 85% squares back to our shop so darker chocolate lovers could get their snack on once more.
When it comes to launching things, we also opened our Dallas warehouse this Fall. This means if you live in Texas, you'll get free shipping that''s 1-2 day transit times and that will be invaluable in the summer. More locations are coming in 2020 and we can't wait to tell you about them.
Last but not least, we're so happy we got to bring you a seasonal gem with white peppermint chocolate chips this December. Expect more seasonal flavors throughout 2020 since those did so well and inspired us all with our customers' wonderful creations.
You will also see a new website which will have a loyalty program for those frequent shoppers! There will be a continued dedication to our recipe program so you can find easy, functional, and low sugar recipes to satiate your sugar free success.
Thank you so much for a wonderful 2019, and we can't wait to experience 2020 with you.
Warmly,
Rhea & the ChocZero Team
P.S. We didn't forget the "Rhea bar," don't worry. She's coming...someday in 2020!