Today we’d like to introduce you to Vicdaly Williams.
Hi Vicdaly, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story starts back in 2002 when my husband and I moved to the US from Venezuela with our newborn son. At the time, I was 21 and didn’t speak English, but was full of energy and determined to succeed in this country and break through any barrier in my way. After my husband left the military in 2007, I started going to college while raising our son and daughter, who was born a year earlier. I graduated in 2012 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and began my first career in the Oil and Gas Industry for a large corporation.
As we built our life here in the US, the situation was not so great back in my home country and the economic situation continued to deteriorate year after year; which leads to the latest chapter in my story as a Chemical Engineer turned Chocolate Maker. My business, Chocolates Dalila, was born in late 2018 and we started operation in January of 2019. The inspiration for the business came about after my husband and I, traveled to Venezuela the summer of 2018 to visit family and friends. For my husband, it was his first time traveling to the country in six years and he hadn’t witnessed first hand the challenges the country was experiencing. The trip was so impactful that we started contemplating various business ideas that would include Venezuela as the focus and the goal being how we could create a positive economic impact and fund outreach programs. We started brainstorming the products that Venezuela is best known for and ultimately decided that we would make craft chocolate, from bean to bar, using cacao we would import from Venezuela and in that moment Chocolates Dalila was born! Venezuela is known around the world for its fine cacao. We purchase raw cacao from Venezuela at a fair price, roast our own beans, and stone grind our cacao for a smooth, high quality chocolate bar. Our company motto is “Let’s make the world a little better one bar at a time”. Since starting the business we have funding several outreach projects such as school supplies for children, athletic equipment, foods, and medicines.
At the time we started the business, I was still working a full time job in the oil and gas industry. It wasn’t until the third quarter of 2021 that I decided to take a leap of faith and make Chocolates Dalila my full time job, after 10+ years of working in corporate America. I am now pursuing my purpose of growing the business so we can impact more people and continue to have a direct positive impact in the cacao community in the area we source our cacao from. We have been very fortunate in that we have developed a great relationship with our Cacao Producer in Venezuela, Cacao Marquez, and have a fantastic community that supports our business, especially in Tomball, TX where we really got our start at the local farmers market. I am passionate about the craft chocolate business and every day I am turning the wheels in my brain thinking of new ways I can make the business grow; every day I try to be better than the day before and continuously strive to better myself and the business.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Coming up with the business idea to make craft chocolate from bean to bar was the easy part, we faced many challenges with making the business a reality. For starters we had no idea how to make chocolate; we only knew that chocolate comes from cacao which is grown in many regions across Venezuela. We spent the last several months of 2018 researching where we could source our cacao from in Venezuela and how to make chocolate at home; fortunately, after a great deal of trial and error and research we were able to find some really good sources of information along the way and courses to improve our skills. We actually almost gave up on the business altogether after most of our batches of chocolate we absolutely could not temper properly. Tempering is the method of aligning the crystal structures within the fats of the chocolate to get that nice shine and snap and it is very challenging to master until we finally found Chocolate Alchemy and John Nanci was able to get us on the right track with zero tempering issues going forward. Early on we quickly learned just how much work chocolate making really is; when you make your own chocolate you have to separate, roast, crack, winnow (remove the husk), and stone grind your beans into smooth chocolate which is an effort that takes a couple of days. Our next challenge after learning to make chocolate was how we would be able to sell it, who wold buy it, and where we would sell it. Craft chocolate is quality over quantity and therefore far more expensive than a chocolate candy bar from your local convenience store, so there was also a great deal of educating the customer on why craft chocolate is more expensive and a better option. Craft chocolate is an experience with unique terroir and inherent flavor notes just like a fine wine. There are several other craft chocolate makers in the Houston area that came before us but overall it is a fairly new concept for many Houstonians and Texans in general. Our business has been a constant evolution as we balance what we want to make and what sells best in our local area and also finding our own unique niche within the industry. Currently, our biggest challenges are debottlenecking our processes for producing more chocolate and continuously improve our marketing to increase our reach.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We specialize in making exceptionally high quality chocolate from bean to bar using ethically sourced cacao and using a portion of our proceeds every year to do outreach projects in Venezuela and support the farmers that work so hard to bring us such an amazing agricultural product. One thing that sets us apart from others is that we have a true direct trade relationship with our cacao producer in Venezuela, Cacao Marquez, and have been able to work together to support the farmer network that they work with in Venezuela by providing a bonus using our proceeds that goes directly back to the farmer for a job well done and help ensure that cacao farming remains an economically viable business. We also pay above fair trade value for exceptional cacao. Some of the recent products that we are the most proud of is our ceremonial cacao bars and our personalized wedding bars. Our ceremonial cacao bars allow you to experience how chocolate was originally utilized by indigenous tribes in South and Mesoamerica in precolonial times as a drink in ceremonies. Our wedding bars are completely personalized bars from the design to the type of chocolate we make; we work with our graphic designer in Venezuela and customer to create a unique label design to the customers’ specifications and desired type of chocolate. We would also like your readers to know that we are dedicated to making a positive impact in the world through our chocolate sales and we have done many very impactful projects as previously mentioned. Our motto is thanks for helping us make the world a little better one bar at a time.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
We moved to Houston back in 2016 and this was our second time to live in Texas. The first time we lived in San Antonio while my husband was in the Army. We have absolutely fallen in love with the state of Texas and Houston. We love that Houston is so diverse and offers something for everyone. If you love food, there is food from every part of the planet; if you love art, we have world class art exhibits, if you love sports we have it all from football, baseball to rodeo. Houston is truly a city for everyone and we love how inviting the city has been to those relocating here from outside the city or from other states or countries. We really don’t have much to dislike about the city except for maybe how you can experience four seasons in one day or summers so hot that you literally start sweating as soon as you stop outside.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.chocolatesdalila.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chocolates.dalila/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chocolates.dalilaofficial/
