Backed by Hersheys, Chocolate Star Brenner Starts a ‘Second Chapter’

It’s been almost 10 years outside the chocolate business for celebrated chocolatier Oded Brenner. The Max Brenner co-founder was forced to take a five-year hiatus from the chocolate business as a condition of the sale of his first company, and then it took several more to dial in his next venture. But the globally recognized pastry chef says he’s back, and now doing “exactly what I want to be doing” with a new, cacao-focused brand platform called Blue Stripes.

After opening the cafe in 2019, Brenner is now moving Blue Stripes into packaged products: last month, the company introduced over 20 new cacao-based products online, including Water, Bread Mix, Hazelnut Butter, Fruit Sugar, Keto Dessert Bites and Espresso Powder. Cacao Water is the first to launch into brick-and-mortar retail, in 50 New York area stores including Brooklyn Fare and Westside Markets at an MSRP of $4.99.

In 2010, along with Max Fichtman, Brenner, a native of Israel, created chocolate shop and restaurant Max Brenner to address a disconnect he saw in the marketplace: although chocolate was steeped in fantasy and indulgence, most chocolate shops were too formal and relied on consumers selecting chocolate from a case. The restaurant, which embraced whimsical design elements like chocolate pipes and menu items such as chocolate pizza, and an accompanying retail product line, grew to over 70 locations globally before Israeli food company The Strauss Group acquired the majority of Max Brenner in 2001.

Brenner subsequently departed the company and launched a new chocolate concept, Little Brown, which pitted him in a legal battle with Strauss Group for breach of contract. Despite claiming he had verbal permission to start the brand, he was eventually forced to settle and in 2011 he agreed not to have anything to do with chocolate for five years.

“This was five long sad years…I was not doing the thing that was my occupation, my love and the [source of] my creativity,” Brenner said. “Blue Stripes is an unbelievable second chapter for my chocolate journey. It was a very tough five years but what I’m doing now is exactly what I want to be doing.”

But despite the fact that Brenner is now free from his chocolate non-compete clause, his focus with Blue Stripes is on cacao, the fruit used to make chocolate. Rather than indulgence, the product line is centered on health and wellness, with an emphasis on the fruit’s nutritional content such as antioxidants, calcium, potassium, magnesium and vitamin B.

There are also sustainability and labor benefits wrapped in the play. Right now, chocolate producers only utilize roughly 30% of the fruit, Brenner said, with the remainder of the pod often discarded and unable to command the same premium price point. Brenner hopes setting up a marketplace for cacao can show its use, decrease food waste while increasing the fruit’s value for farmers and processors.

The company has attracted some fairly well known investors, including C7 Ventures, the venture capital arm of The Hershey Company, as well as Landwer Coffee Group and a spate of private investors. Though the company declined to disclose how much it has raised in total, Blue Stripes filed a form D with the SEC in August for $2.75 million. Brenner declined to say if Hershey’s has first right of refusal for a potential future acquisition but said the investment gives the strategic “a foot in the door to commercialize some products.”

”At some point in the future, if they want to buy the brand, they can do that,” as well, he added.

A more immediate dream, Brenner said, is to begin working with larger brands, such as Hershey’s, to find new uses for discarded cacao.

Blue Stripes has future franchise locations planned for Toronto, Nashville, Washington, D.C. and Louisville, Kentucky, butBrenner said that he believes that the company’s real promise is in CPG, and Hershey’s does too. Cacao’s versatility, he added, is part of the reason behind the large number of products at launch. Consumers are familiar with cacao nibs and powder, he said, but he feels that consumers don’t fully understand cacao’s full potential.

“It’s not some niche product that we found growing in the Amazon,” he said.“Cacao is one of the biggest commodities in the world with coffee and tea… [but] our slogan is ‘the most unknown fruit behind the most known foods.”

Brenner’s cacao water is being distributed on the East Coast by Gotham Brands and on the West Coast by Hi-Touch Distribution. Brenner said he selected the water as the first product for release because of its distinctive packaging, he said, and because it could have broad appeal, given consumers’ familiarity with coconut water. Available in three flavors — Just Cacao, Cascara Coffee Cinnamon and Chili Lime Cardamom — the water is made with filtered water, cacao juice and a combination of cascara essence and flavor extracts, depending on the SKU. Each 10.5 oz. bottle has 80 calories, 17-18 grams of sugar and 4% of a consumer’s daily magnesium and potassium.

Before achieving its ambition of entering mass retail chains, Blue Stripes Cacao Water will need to educate consumers about the product type; according to Brenner, the concept still provokes comparisons to chocolate milk for many shoppers. Given the dearth of opportunities for sampling, the brand plans to rely on word of mouth from early adopters to explain that the beverage is closer to the drinking experience of a floral, tropical lemonade.

Still, Brenner said “I’m sure” the product could eventually have the reach of coconut water.

“The market is so hard and so complicated that you need to find the anchor to make it a little easier on you and for you to climb the mountain,” he said.