In 2016 Michael Sauvageau walked into a hackerspace in Danbury with a plain bar of Hershey’s chocolate.
He had recently visited a trade show while contemplating a change of career, and the primary thing he took away was simply “chocolate.” Nearly every booth had handed him a piece of chocolate, giving him the impression that if nothing else, chocolate was clearly a big business. However, he wasn’t sure how to break into it.
Then he heard from a friend about a new laser etching technique and contemplated the possibility of making puzzle pieces out of chocolate. Jennifer Sauvageau, his then wife and current business partner, had a better idea: use the laser to engrave messages in the chocolate.
“I met the guy who was running the place,” Michael said, of that first experiment. “He said ‘That sounds crazy. Let me show you how to use the machine.’”
“It didn’t work great,” Michael admitted of the first experiment, but he kept returning on subsequent Thursdays when the hackerspace had free entry and honed the technique.
The end result was Noteworthy Chocolates, the world’s first laser etched chocolate business.
Customized confections are not entirely new. Pictures can be printed on cakes and several candy manufacturers offer customized options. This is typically accomplished either by applying the image to a candy or cake with edible dye, or by meticulously hand-piping or applying a message like on a traditional birthday cake.
Both methods have drawbacks. Some people avoid dyes for health or diet reasons, and the image fidelity is often low. Hand crafting is time consuming and requires skilled hands, making it difficult to scale. And when it comes to chocolate without a shell or layer of more printer friendly material, customized orders typically entail creating a mold which can’t vary between individual pieces and has no use after the order is completed.
In contrast the Sauvages’ laser etching process does not require adding food dye that can smear or run. It also means that every piece in an order can be customized easily as they can be made all at the same time. All the client has to do is provide the list of recipient’s names.
According to Jennifer the ability to add that personal touch is a major selling point.
“This isn’t just a piece of chocolate, it’s way more than that,” she said. “It’s an experience that we are creating. We actually have two customers, the people who do the ordering, and also the people receiving the gift. That’s our second customer.”
She emphasized that the packaging was designed with care to be as recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable as possible, even using cellulose instead of cellophane to wrap the individual chocolate pieces. Jennifer described the goal of Noteworthy Chocolates was to provide recipients with something they will never forget while leaving behind almost nothing to impact the environment.
Jennifer explained that customer focus also drove their choice of supplier for the raw milk, white and dark chocolate, Guittard Chocolate Company. Guittard has strict standards about avoiding contamination with allergens such as nuts or soy products (as she suffers from food allergies herself she also wanted to make sure she could sample their own products). Guittard’s dark chocolate is also vegan, containing no eggs or dairy.
Noteworthy melts the chocolate and uses molds to make “blanks” in various shapes which can then be etched on demand with whatever the customer orders. For business orders Michael works with clients to design etchings that meet their needs, applying logos and text as needed with a CAD program and producing test runs to make sure the design comes out bold and sharp.
When the order is ready the Sauvageau’s, who work alongside their children in the Bethel-based six-person business, hand package each chocolate and ready it for shipping nationwide.
To learn more about Noteworthy Chocolates and their sweet gifts, visit noteworthychocolates.com.
