Maureen Nikaido of Philomath is on a mission to honor the farmers who grow cacao and educate American consumers about the goodness of bean-to-bar chocolate with her new brand – Moku Chocolate.
The first spark of this idea came eight years ago when she toured a chocolate museum in Nicaragua. Before that trip, she was a typical buyer, grabbing a chocolate bar off the supermarket shelf without knowing how it was made, or where it came from – assuming from a chocolate factory.
Her quest for how to help the cacao farmers led her to exploring chocolate, specifically making it after taking an online course at Ecole Chocolat – a professional school of the chocolate arts for chocolatiers and chocolate makers based in San Francisco.. Then, wIth a how-to book as her guide, she used rudimentary tools to take a bag of cacao beans and turn them into chocolate bars.
Yet, to create a bean to bar chocolate she had to learn more. Just before the pandemic, she took a trip to Belize and saw her first cacao tree, deepening her resolve to support the farmers with her chocolates.
As the pandemic raged on, it offered her the opportunity to take a Portland Community College class virtually on bringing food products to market. This course offered her connections and support to bring her hobby to the business level.
Nikaido was already making single origin chocolates, but wanted to move beyond her comfort zone and create something adventurous chocolate lovers might enjoy. Experimenting with beans from Colombia, an apricot flavor came out.
“What goes with apricot?” she asked herself. “Goat milk!”
At first the goat milk bar didn’t really work flavor-wise, until she learned the secret to mellowing it out and creating a flavor profile she enjoys.
In her research during her PPC course, she discovered the International Chocolate Awards competition and in October of 2020 submitted her goat milk bar. She had been making chocolate for less than a year, and at that point didn’t even have packaging.
At first, she had planned on selling through farmers markets and boutiques, but her business advisor encouraged her to think bigger, and she approached Market of Choice as well as a specialty boutique, The Meadows, which has stores in Portland, NYC, and Japan. Her packaging was finalized in January 2021. Just in time, as it turns out. 
Last March, Nikaido learned she won a gold and a silver for her goat milk bar in that international competition, and then- coincidentally- received a large order from Market of Choice. Then, The Meadows, in an unusual move for them, tasted her bar one weekend and placed orders the next.
These days Moku keeps Nikaido so busy she quit her day job at Oregon State University, where she had been the Director of Alumni Relations for the College of Liberal Arts. More stores – like the First Alternative Co-Op – are ordering and her business is growing. She is still taking things one step at a time, to make sure she enjoys what she does, and can keep her mission of helping cacao farmers at the forefront of why she makes craft chocolate.
By Stacey Newman Weldon
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