Theo Chocolate
Converted trolley barn housing North America's first organic, fair-trade certified bean-to-bar chocolate factory.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Theo Chocolate in Seattle follows Joe Whinney, who fell for cacao while working in the rainforests of Belize and came home determined to make chocolate bean to bar, only to watch his first company collapse in the early 2000s. It traces his second attempt with Jeff Fairhall, a fellow Seattle food entrepreneur who backed the idea and moved the operation into an old Fremont trolley barn that had sat empty for decades. You'll hear how the two built the country's first fully organic, fair-trade certified chocolate factory, and what Whinney carried on alone after Fairhall's death. Look up at the barn's old roofline, unchanged since the streetcars ran beneath it.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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