The Story of a Brand Show · 2026-06-12 · 55 min
A flood destroyed the factory, the FDA shut them down, and the company had almost no cash and then something remarkable happened. Ramon Vela sits down with Alex Whitmore , Founder & CEO of Taza Chocolate , for a deeply human conversation about twenty-plus years of stone-ground, mission-driven chocolate making in Somerville, Massachusetts. From a transformative trip to Oaxaca to pioneering direct trade relationships with cocoa farmers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Alex's story is one of the most compelling in the specialty food world. * The flood that almost ended everything. Just a few years into building Taza , a freak thunderstorm flooded the factory, destroyed inventory, and triggered an FDA shutdown. What happened next surprised even Alex: suppliers, customers, landlord, and community all showed up. That moment taught him that business is deeply human at its core. * A trip to Oaxaca that changed everything. The name Taza comes from "taza de chocolate," a traditional Mexican drinking chocolate.
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