Chocolate has finally found its sweet spot in India

There existed a time when an international trip almost necessitated returning home with a duffel of foreign chocolate. Featuring the Godivas, Lindts and Toberones of the world, this stash was carefully segregated: one section was proceeded to be devoured and the other, gifted to family and friends who made the cut to receive the cross-border delicacies. The availability of chocolate in India wasn’t the reason many flew across seas to fill their carry-ons with the food of the gods; it was its reputation.

In 1948, Cadbury entered India with imported chocolates. After local manufacturing in the 60s, they swiftly became a hit and Dairy Milk became the household name it is today. This was followed by Amul launching homegrown chocolates in the 70s and 80s. Close behind them was Nestle, who brought KitKat to India in the 90s. Chocolate had been readily available across the country for decades and yet, it couldn’t hold a candle to the glossy, tempered sinful treats of the West. Duty Free shops continued to be raided and suitcases, stuffed to their maximum capacity; all for the love of chocolate considered to be higher in taste and quality, even if it came at a higher price point.

Cut to the early 2010s, when a shift began to emerge in the very sinful sphere. Until then, India had only known of and consumed commercial, large-scale produced chocolate. In 2012, Naviluna arrived as the first bean-to-bar chocolate house in India. Hailing from Mysore, it calls itself one of the first chocolate makers in the world to use exclusively use organically certified Indian cacao beans. Two years later, Mason & Co was born in Tamil Nadu’s Auroville. They distinguished themselves with their non-mechanised production process with cacao beans from South India. Soon after, Pascati from Kerala announced itself in 2015 as the first USDA Organic and Fair-Trade certified brand; followed by Tamil Nadu’s Soklet in 2017, which focuses on roasting, fermenting, and processing cacao from their in-house plantations located at the foothills of the Anamalai range. 

Another decade later and the sweet, sweet momentum gathered by artisanal chocolate has only gathered steam. No longer perceived as a solely niche product, homegrown chocolate brands have now reached the mainstream. They have made their way to the shelves of grocery stores, to gift hampers during the festive season and even as part of the after-dinner sweet treat ritual. Besides consumption, premium Indian chocolate has also expanded to home baking needs.

BAR, which stands for Baker’s Artisanal Recipes, was founded in 2021 in Vadodara, Gujarat. Made with 100% pure cocoa butter, their premium couverture chocolates and bean-to-bar slabs are loved by both, those who love to bite into a chunk and those who love to bake chunky chocolate chip cookies. In 2023, Hyderabad’s Manam was created by Chaitanya Muppala, who followed the family’s sweet legacy of Almond House and branched out into the fine chocolate segment. Proudly captioning their product as “not Belgian” and “not French”, the brand has recently expanded to Saket in New Delhi. 

Indian chocolate isn’t catching up anymore, it has arrived. You won’t need to cross the world to get it any longer, just the street to the grocery store.