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Food

Chocolate start-up

Israeli's spirit of business adventure is about tastes as well as tech, says Justin Fine

April 17, 2018 09:45
Justine Fine planned to join the rabbinate - until he fell in love with chocolate-making
2 min read

So you thought that the Start-up Nation mentality was all about advancing high-tech? For me, it is all about indulging taste buds.

They told me in culinary school in America that nobody, apart from the huge producers, actually makes chocolate from the cocoa bean to a finished product. Bakers and confectioners buy it in. And even most “chocolatiers” source ready chocolate and concentrate their energy on shaping and filling it.

But I did not stay in America. I moved to Israel, where people throw caution to the wind. And today, I run one of the world’s smallest bean-to-bar chocolate-making operations.

I was in the middle of university in New York when I fell in love with confectionery. My future was actually headed in a very different direction at the time. I was planning to join the rabbinate. But in 2009 I took some time off from university to attend pastry school.