By Jecca Berta

As we head into a new year, we sat down with Todd at our 16^th Street factory to discuss all things craft chocolate. We talked about how things are going at Dandelion, what’s new and exciting, the challenges of scaling craft, and an R&D project that begins and ends with a mug.

How did 2025 go? Any highlights?

Todd: At the beginning of the year, we always wonder how there will be enough days to work through all of the projects on our to-do list. In January, we gather the leadership team together at our house to identify the top three to four priorities for the year. While the Advent Calendar, Signature Easter Egg, and new Japanese projects always make headlines in our newsletters, there are other projects behind the scenes that are just as exciting but perhaps don’t hold attention in a newsletter or blog — things like recoding our backend fulfillment operations, redesigning some of our machines to be even safer, hosting cacao producers from the Solomon Islands, developing new operation checklists, and trying a new spin on Twelve Nights. There’s always a lot going on, and overall 2025 was a great year.

On the personal front, Elaine surprised me with a puppy for my birthday in November. Q4 is maybe not the ideal time for a new addition, but she’s been a lot of fun. Many people suggested names for her. We generated a long list before finally deciding on “Cocoa” (hat tip to Kika for the name). 

Oh, nice. Welcome, Cocoa! What does Dandelion have planned in 2026? What might we look forward to? 

Todd: We’re going to continue creating some of the world’s best chocolate. That’s always our primary goal — to make products we’re proud of. Our Confections offerings continue to grow, and we’ll be rolling out some new Valentine’s and Easter products later this winter and spring. We’re also already starting on our 2026 Advent Calendar. In a few weeks, we’ll begin tasting the first round of chocolatiers’ submissions from the Advent open call. Last year’s Calendar was our most popular yet. We’re going to try to do more this year, though that’s always a challenge.

As for new offerings, Mug Cakes have been a stealth project for a while. It’s currently in R&D. We’re working with an amazing industrial designer on creating the best experience, with the optimal mug shape, material, and everything. It’s very exciting. Hopefully this will be the year! 

Are there any new stores or cafés on the horizon? 

Todd: We have a few new locations. Our Fillmore Street location is finally, years later, going to become a café. And our Powell Street pop-up in Union Square — part of the city’s Vacant to Vibrant program — is likely turning into an express café. We’re working out the details right now. We’ll have tables and chairs outside, and a small café menu. And then we’re closing our Union Street pop-up, and will be opening a full café nearby on Chestnut Street. Eventually we’ll expand it to have a backyard garden as well. Hopefully it will be complete by the spring.

Have you ever thought about opening elsewhere, such as New York or Chicago?

Todd: We have thought about it. We would like to expand to other cities, but probably not this year. That’s further into the future.

Between tariffs and volatile cocoa prices, 2025 was, in many ways, a tough year for the craft chocolate industry. What were some challenges that Dandelion faced? 

Todd: I think the industry generally has had a hard couple of years. COVID and bean prices and tariffs were kind of a triple whammy for a lot of craft chocolate companies. Several small craft makers — many of them our friends — have closed, which is sad. I think we have been fortunate. The last couple of years, we’ve been rebuilding and have managed to come out stronger with our online business and retail stores. We had to try a lot of new things, but we feel back to normal. San Francisco feels back to normal. 

Tariffs were definitely a big surprise. We are already paying a lot for our beans through direct trade, and tariffs increased that. We also source packaging overseas, so that hit hard. Part of the challenge was not knowing what was happening, and trying to navigate the changes and uncertainties. We were able to get through it, but I think for a lot of smaller companies it was especially challenging.

The thing about commodity bean prices is they used to be under $3,000 a tonne, and they went up as high as $12,000 a tonne. As we don’t buy commodity beans, we were already paying an average of $11,000 (pre-tariffs). Once the market got out of whack, it caused some issues with supply. We saw some cases where quality went down. It was a weird time, but we have long-standing relationships with people we’ve been doing business with for over ten years. We’ve generally been good partners and vice versa, so we have a longer-term view of this. For bigger companies that are making mass market chocolate and are seeing their main ingredient double or triple in price, it’s a different story — we’re seeing a lot of shrinkflation, or reformulation of products. That’s why you see some “chocolate flavored” labels, because those products aren’t legally considered chocolate anymore. That’s a different part of the market, but it’s been interesting to watch. 

In spite of the challenges, it looks like 2025 was a great year for the company.

Todd: We’ve grown something like 40 percent a year for four years in a row, and that’s with keeping the same team more or less. We’re getting better at our craft and at being more efficient. We’re excited about our Confections program, which started as a pandemic experiment. Everything has risen up because we’ve brought that in house. 

What do you mean by “a pandemic experiment”? 

Todd: With COVID, we lost about 80 percent of our revenue in one day. Before that, we were primarily an in-person business. People would come to the factory, smell the beans being roasted, and talk to a chocolate maker, or get a hot chocolate. Once COVID happened, we had baristas become web developers, and team members helping out in all sorts of ways. We’d always collaborated with other chocolatiers, and continue to do so, but we also started experimenting with developing our own confections. That’s how our Single-Origin Truffles came to be. 

As the world slowly returned to normal, we were worried about whether the online traffic we had built up would remain, but we’ve bolstered both online sales and foot traffic in our stores. This past year, Confections and online sales were the largest and fastest growing parts of our business.

Bars will always be central to Dandelion, but our Confections have been such a fun path to pursue. 

Todd: Over the last couple of years, we’ve been doing more of our own confections, and showing our own point of view. It started with the Single-Origin Truffles, where you can taste five chocolate origins in ganache form; then we launched Single-Origin Caramels, which is the opposite — we make caramel from five different sugars but keep the chocolate consistent. And then with the Single-Origin Pralinés, each praliné is melded with a different chocolate. It’s been really fun to introduce those products. 

What’s the most important or unexpected thing you’ve learned since getting into the craft chocolate business more than fifteen years ago?

Todd: Something we always worry about and are thoughtful about is how can we scale craft? A lot of people, especially in the U.S., have never tried a really good bar of chocolate — not just Dandelion — so we think there’s still a lot of room in the market. We don’t want to become a mini version of industrial chocolate, where we grow and grow, and our products and flavors decline. We’ve had to be careful about where we can add efficiencies and automation, but still have that craft element with makers who are thinking about the flavors and roasting the beans. That’s a very challenging thing. We try to keep ourselves honest. 

What do you most value in fellow Dandelions?

Todd: We have a really great team at all levels of the company. Most people are passionate about what we are doing, about craft chocolate. We are fortunate to work with a great group of people, who I hope are here because they want to be part of the future of chocolate. 

Lastly, do you have a favorite Dandelion product?

Todd: I’m partial to our bars. That’s how we started. But I also drink hot chocolate almost every day. I’ll usually get our House Hot Chocolate, or sometimes the European Drinking Chocolate. Advent is another favorite. It’s always really fun to see what all the other chocolatiers create, and get a different treat every day with different styles and approaches. That’s become a holiday tradition for many, many people. I get a lot of real-time feedback from friends. 

We look forward to what unfolds in 2026. Thanks so much, Todd!