How two brothers built Rakkaudella Chocolates, Kerala’s single-origin bean-to-bar chocolate

Kuriachan Johnson arranges chocolate bars at his chocolate store at Pepper House, Fort Kochi. The shelves lining the walls bear Rakkaudella chocolate bars of varying percentages and flavours. Also on the counters are containers with tiny wooden spoons for sampling the chocolate he manufactures with his older brother, an engineer, Ouseppachan Johnson. From struggling to sell 20 kilograms of chocolate they made in 2021 to manufacturing seven tonnes of single-origin premium chocolate in 2025, the success of Rakkaudella Chocolates, a single-origin premium bean-to-bar label, is testimony to the brothers’ determination.

Pepper House during the Biennale is busy, people walk in and out, most to see the art while others saunter into the Rakkaudella store, curious. “These are good!” chorus a couple as they sample the chocolates, meanwhile Kuriachan continues, oblivious, focussed on arranging/sorting the chocolate bars and replenishing the shelves. There was a time, he says, when nobody was interested in the chocolate the two brothers had to sell, the chocolate was either not “dark” enough or “bitter enough”.

“Good quality dark chocolate is not very bitter, like people think,” says Kuriachan who has researched chocolate-making and spent almost a year perfecting, what he calls, the “optimum steps” to getting a recipe that works. 

His eyes light up when he talks about his almost six-year-old chocolate brand, his childhood dream/passion to be an entrepreneur and how both culminated in Rakkaudella. This is where the “how do a post-graduate in Economics and an engineer end up manufacturing chocolate in Thodupuzha” question comes up.    

A bar of Rakkaudella chocolate.  
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SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

“My inspiration came from my friend Luka Beltrami, a Belgian, and his Italian wife Ellen Taerwe, who have been sourcing chocolate from Idukki. Luka exports it to Europe and the US. He told me how craft chocolate manufacturers, who make premium pure chocolate without emulsifiers or stabilisers, in Europe and the US source from him. These brands would then label it as ‘single origin from Idukki’, I saw another label that said ‘single origin chocolate from Kaithaparavanam in Idukki.’

That set him thinking about manufacturing chocolate locally. “I looked at the prices, these cost around ē10 for a 70 gram bar, which is approximately ₹1,000. So, of course, I wanted to go ahead and do it. I approached Luka, and he told me I would not get a market here.” But Kuriachan persevered.

“If Idukki is mentioned on the cover, then I wanted to make it here.” So Kuriachan took a leap of faith and launched with an initial investment of around ₹50-70 lakhs. Rakkaudella, incidentally, means ‘with love’ in Finnish.

It took a year to figure out how to make chocolate. “We ‘wasted’ so much material during that time, almost one lakh rupees worth. We had to find the optimum level of roasting of the beans, conching, refining…, ” he says. He confesses that they came very close to shutting it down. However his parents supported him emotionally as well as financially: his father is a farmer and a business owner while his mother is a school teacher. 

Cocoa beans being processed at the Kanjirapally unit.
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SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Rakkaudella sources cocoa from Luca, who Kuriachan says, processes cacao beans scientifically because of his years of experience in the business.  The chocolate needs just two ingredients — cocoa and sugar — not emulsifiers or stabilisers because “the taste of cocoa, on its own, is not bitter so you don’t need to add anything else to it..”

As Luka had prophesied, it was an uphill task from the get-go. Their chocolate bars barely sold. Then they approached city bakers. “They said they had not heard of us, that our chocolate was not bitter enough,” Kuriachan says, adding that inferior beans create bitter chocolate. “With high quality beans, it is flavourful, fruity, and nutty.” 

Chocolate cheesecake at the Rakkaudella experience store in Kochi.
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SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The brothers then tried their luck in Mumbai, and the 70 gram Rakkudella bars started selling out. “We could not even sell 20 kilograms when we started out. Today we manufacture around seven tonnes monthly.”  Though they started at Thodupuzha, they now have a larger factory at Kanjirapally. They acquired two business partners, Kochi-based businessmen Issac Alexander and Reny Jacob.

The brothers decided it was time to return to Kochi.

Vindication has been pouring in, especially at Pepper House. The Rakkaudella bars now come in many flavours, including orange zest, white chocolate matcha, dark chocolate with sea salt, coffee, ginger, and black pepper. “Flavours are not difficult, the base [to which the flavour is added] is important — the roasting and the tempering, for instance, on which we ‘build’ the chocolate.” 

They opened a store in Panampilly Nagar in 2024, which serves brownies, chocolate-based confections and desserts. Kuriachan confesses is not easily accessible. “It is the kind of place where you have to turn on Google Maps, however, it has 100% customer retention. Those who have tried our desserts return!”

More importantly, those who turned him away initially also returned.

As they enter their sixth year, with 25 employees, Kuriachan’s plans for the year include increasing monthly production to 20 tonnes by the year end, with focus on selling to gourmet bakers and in the retail space as well. They then plan to expand across the country, and abroad.

“I want to start a store in Europe and the US.  It could be Paris. Nobody there [Europe] does single origin — farm to bar — to the best of my knowledge. But before all that comes the first phase of expansion, in India, is opening stores in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai. I want more than just an online presence!”

Published – April 02, 2026 04:23 pm IST