We recently connected with Shalini Latour and have shared our conversation below.

Shalini, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Chocolats Latour was born from luck, circonstance and accident. At the time, I was Hatha Yoga instuctor and made wedding cakes from home kitchen. Then I fell off a later while trying to get a bat out of my house. I found years later that I actually had a large bat colony living in wall of my house. It took a couple yaer to evict them. Anyway I fell of a later and disclocated small bones in the midfoot of my right leg. I had to have a foot fusion. The result was that walking barefoot is challenging and yoga became dificult because of it. Lifting heavy wedding cakes was also challenging. During the same period of time a friend of mine told me he wanted to open a chocolate lounge, like a caffee but chocolate focused. He asked me if I would be intersted to produce the chocolates for it. It sounded fun so I started to play with chocolate to see what I could come up with. It was a chalenging for me. recuperating from surgery, slowy realizing that I may not be able to continue teaching yoga and strugeling with the doctors and hospital bills, but chocolate making was fun. I started selling the chocolates I It made to be able to purchase more chocolate and continue experimenting. I send an email to everyone I knew before Valentine’s Day thinking that if sold ten boxes of chocolates I’d be really happy. I sold close to a hundred. That response made me think that I was on to something. My friend dropped the chocolate lounge idea but since the response was good I kept going. I started selling my chocolates at farmer’s markets. I got to know many of farmer’s and started getting inspired by fresh local ingredients to flavor my chocolates. That focus on fresh local ingredients became a focus for my business as the concept started to take shape. Once I decided that was trully going to move forward with a chocolate business I signed for Bad Girl Venture., It is now Aviatra, It is an organization focused on helping women aquire funding for business. That program tought me, business basics and helped articulate and focus what I wanted to do. I was alos able to get a small business loan to get equipment I need to start a more proffesional production. So for me starting Chocolats Latour, was a slow, organic, natural process.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As a child I started baking and making candies. My mom is from Belgium and in the european tradition we made everything from scratch. She tought me how to make cakes, tarts, pies, cookies and more. I started to bake profesionally when I was 20 and was on staff in a medition center in New York State. I spent ten years there and honed my skills as pasty chef in addition to mediting, chanting and practicing yoga. I moved to Cincinnati and worked in bakeries here before starting to make wedding cakes from home kitchen. I also wrote a cake decoration book. I am a chocolatier, it means that I start with chocolate that someone else made. I flavor it, blend it, mold it, decorate it and make rich flvorfull fillings. Chocolats Latour is my baby and is mostly a one woman show. I have help for packaging and taking care of my shop but I make all the chocolates. I offer chocolate bars in adventurous flavor, seasonal item for each holiday and hand painted filled chocolates. Unusual flavors, the use of local ingredients and the artistic decorations are what my chocolates are know for. I use all natural ingredients, no preservatives and make everything from scartch.
I belive food and the love of good, delicious, hand crafted food is important and should be shared. My mom imparted that love to me from a young age and now I get to share it.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that the goal of all business is to become as big as possible. In all the business classes I took, expention, hiring and becoming big was the always the goal. I had to become confortable with that fact that it’s not what I am after. I loved making chocolates. If I grew my business I would become a mangeur and not be as hands in the kitchen. I had to learn that my business can be what serves me and my costumers best. A small shop serves me and my the chocolate lovers I serve well and that what I wnat to continue doing.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

While Chocolats Latour is my business my shop is called The Chocolate Bee because I share it with my friend Sam Of Bee Haven Honey. We met at farmers markets around town but did not know each other well. When I was looking to move production out of my house and wanted a retail space to go with that one of my friend had store front open. I looked at it but it was too big and too expensive for me to take on. So I looked for a perter that woudl want to do it with me. Jan who owned the store front suggested I call Sam because she was looking for a shop too. We talked for five minutes on the phone and where agreed. We then met and worked out the details. I was nervous about having a partner. But the right partner is fantastic. We have been parter at the shop for 8 years now and still work everyhthing out easely and confortably.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chocolatslatour.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/chocolatslatour
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chocolatslatour

Image Credits
Shalini Latour