How an IT professional broke into the world of gourmet chocolaty goodness.

How an IT professional broke into the world of gourmet chocolaty goodness.

The Story of Theo & Philo Chocolate
by Philo Chua


I was living and working in the States for a few years, but I wanted to start my own business. While I was there, I became a frequent watcher of the Food Network channel and really got into food and cooking. Thinking about a food business then became a natural progression for me even though I had no background in food (my background is in computer science and at the time was actually working in the IT industry).

The inspiration came with this new shop in Pittsburgh that sold gourmet chocolates from around the world. There was a trend for what they would call “single origin” chocolates, which meant that the cacao bean used to make the chocolate came from only one region or country—much like with wine. It piqued my interest and in my research I learned that only tropical countries within 20 degrees of the equator, like the Philippines, can grow cacao. So even though we thought European chocolates are the best, the raw materials come from countries just like ours. So that got me to thinking of doing single origin Philippine chocolates since nobody had it at the time. It was then that I decided to come home to pursue this.

The start was not easy especially since I don’t have any background in chocolate-making. All I had was a couple of books and there were no courses in making chocolate from scratch. People in the Philippines would also rarely understand what I was talking about when I describe the chocolate-making process. Usually, people thought I was making tablea or truffles, which is different. Much of what I learned then was through a lot of trials and errors.

We started with the classic plain 70% Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate. When I started selling, there was some apprehension whether people in the Philippines would understand my concept and at the same time accept the product since it’s still a relatively new concept here. I’m glad to say that the response was better than expected, and sales really started to pick up when we introduced the different flavored chocolates!

Right now, we’re slowly getting better and better, and opportunities we never expected before are coming in, so we’re optimistic about the future.