sweetriot blog - cacao | culture | cool!

Zingerman's weekend fun.

Just in time for graduation weekend at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (go blue!), my mom and I arrived to share cacao at Zingerman's, truly one of the most amazing and unique food stores in the world.  I may be biased since I grew up in Michigan, have gone there since a little girl and went to UM, but Zingerman's truly is special. 

When you walk into Zingerman's you see fresh bread on your right and amazing cheese on your left and a sign board in front of you with endless sandwiches.  It is a colorful visual delight and the good news -- these items taste outstanding too -- at the end of the day, Zingerman's is not a large place and brings in only a few select items.  Each item has to pass through their rigorous taste tests. (sweetriot is honored to be there - they were one of our very 1st customers!)

We spent the entire UM graduation (go blue!) weekend sampling cacao.  There were entire families in town for graduation and some locals too.  You can see some great shots here of me and my mom and the great team at Zingerman's who joined in the riot.  Huge thank you to my mom for rioting, to Duff our Zingerman's host and their great team, and to Kathleen Dolan of UMBS, Jason & Shelby, and April, Kip, and Lei from AIESEC Michigan for visiting us.  Have you been to Zingerman's?...would love to hear your stories!

PS - If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you may have seen a post last fall about Zingerman's.  I love this place! 

Artist's Space

sweetriot was featured at a very cool event this week -- the Artist's Space annual benefit.  Artist's Space was one of the first alternative spaces in the 70's to support emerging artists.  They continue to support artists through out the world.

As sweetriot features artwork from emerging artists on our packaging, we collaborate with great organizations like Artist's Space to find new artists.

Here are some photos from the event including Max Miller, the artist, and the amazing venue - the Prince George Hotel Ballroom, which is now uniquely managed by the non profit, Common Ground.

Our Earth Day rioting.

For Earth Day this past weekend, we were out celebrating (& rioting)!  Matt visited Community Gardens in NYC with the Whole Foods team.  In the mean time, Heidi and I braved the first ever sweetriot trip to Maine and paid a visit to one of our new customers - Wild Oats - in Portland.

Wild Oats is very similar to Whole Foods but us New Yorker's have never been there as the locations are nestled deeply in the suburbs.  We visited Portland, Saugus, Medford, and Andover -- 2 of the 4 places I had never even heard of before!

Needless to say, we met some cacao lovers and spread the joy.  And when we are lucky in New England, we get to see Suzanne too, our lovely graphic designer pictured above.  Suzanne's mom even made it to the store in Portland and Alex my old Yahoo! friend visited us in Medford -- it's always great to see familar rioter faces.  :)

Thanks for joining the riot!

I wanted to send a huge WELCOME to all of the typepad/six apart visitors.  We have had a ton of response from our front-page posting and want to give a special thanks and welcome.  (Thanks to the rioting team at six apart for choosing us!)  :)

We are a small start up, which is out to change the world with amazing products -- our first product line is chocolate covered cacao - the bean that chocolate comes from!  (Try it - it's yummy!)  We have an amazing team of 4 full-time rioters (Nina, Matt, Heidi, me) and 4 part-time rioters (Suzanne, Joe, Kate, Jon ) in a cool, funky shared artists space on Houston St in the Village/Soho (see photos of team above as we play in our lovely city of NYC). 

We like to be as interactive as possible, and our blog is one of those ways. We're always looking for interesting topics to blog about related to our categories: Cacao (aka, Real Chocolate), Celebrate, Chocolate, Community, Company, Cool, Countries, Culture. So if you know of anything we should bring to attention to our fellow rioters - let me know!

Lastly, don't forget you can subscribe to receive updates whenever we post.  To subscribe by RSS, just click on "Subscribe to my news feed for blog updates" and follow the directions.  To receive an email with our blog posts, just type in your email address in the left-hand column and click "Subscribe me!"

Thanks for visiting, listening, and joining the riot community!  You can always learn more at our main website too.  Riotly, Sarah, Mastermind & Chief Rioter.

Cacao not cocoa (Ka-Kow!)

(This blog is a repost of a past post due to its importance and some brand new blog visitors from typepad/six apart - welcome!) 

In my ongoing quest to teach the world the true background of chocolate, I took an opportunity while traveling to Latin America to snap some photos of the real word, cacao, in play.  Here we have further evidence that the origin of chocolate is indeed cacao -- history has also proven that cacao was first linked to Latin America in the 1500's and is said to have been discovered by Cortez or Columbus. 

When traveling in the main cacao producing regions of Latin America, it is not difficult to find a cacao sign along the way. Yes, it's true a 'cocoa bean' and 'cacao bean' are the same thing, but cacao is the real word.  Through time, the word, 'cacao' was english-sized into 'cocoa.'  sweetriot is committed to teaching the world about the background of chocolate and giving individuals access to cacao directly before it is processed away into a chocolate bar.

I love these cacao signs - living proof of all of the cacao in action down South!   If you would like to see a cacao farm, check this out.

It's Earth Day. What are you doing to contribute?

Happy Earth Day!  Today sweetriot is out sharing cacao at some community gardens in New York City with Whole Foods.  In fact, here are some great suggestions from Whole Foods on how to green your life too.  We're excited to have great partners like Whole Foods who also care about the environment and the world.

BTW, did we tell you that sweetriot was chosen as an eco gift in the latest version of Vanity Fair!  How cool is that?  It's the 1st ever green issue of Vanity Fair and it is printed on recylced paper too. 

Don't forget - we are always looking for ideas for reusing our tins.  Please send them our way.  rintintin@sweetriot.com

Alligators in Florida

This past weekend I went to see my dad and sister in Central Florida.  They took me to this cool old FishCamp called Cherry Pockets.  You can see where the boats used to pull up to bring in their fish and the bar is still set up in an old-fashioned, outdoor way.  I would send you to their website but they don't really have one -- there's a rustic approach through and through.

And yes, I saw a baby alligator!  I've been known to approach wild animals but this time I stayed safely behind a barrier.  Although this little one couldn't hurt you, I didn't really want to test out any theories on human/alligator interaction.  :)

Luckily, it was sunny and 80 degrees all weekend.  My lovely rental car company gave me a great upgrade to a convertible, so I zoomed around Central Florida all weekend taking a quick break from the cacao riot in NYC. 

Whole Foods in the Springtime

We had another round of Whole Foods events last week.  sweetriot is honored and excited to be in the store windows of the NYC Chelsea store (see funny photo here!)  They have a cool program called 'Made in NY' which features local companies and their products.    

At Columbus Circle there were TV cameras bustling around for a special national broadcast on Whole Foods and luckily there was some cacao footage taken as well.  There is an energy level in Whole Foods that we enjoy as a team.  The staff is supportive and excited and the consumers are always curious about cacao (see photo here with the great Alfredo.)

As always, when rioters are there, so seem to be the police.  This particular NYPD friend seemed quite fond of cacao, so there were no disturbances to be had.  He wandered by our demo at Whole Foods Chelsea and then even came back for another hit.

Alas, another day, another cacao sampling event.  We are committed to sharing cacao with the entire universe.  Come join us!  (Thanks to Kurt, Nina's brother, who visited from Chicago and joined us for some rioting.)

Featured Artist #3 Coming Soon!!!

Nina and I were in the MoMA Design Store during MoMA member days to share cacao on a rainy April Day.  The MoMA Design Stores never cease to amaze me with their selections of fascinating products from around the world.  It's great to bring our cacao art to their stores, and it's not just cacao we are featuring -- it's also our artwork on our tins!

We're excited as our next artist is coming soon.  We'll be sad to turnover Jelene Morris' art but are always refreshed to feature a new emerging artist.  Our next artist is Tom Fedro from Chicago.  Don't forget - the tins are collectible and reusable! 

Someday hopefully we will have featured 100's of artists, and we're hoping to build an online gallery too!  If you know of any artists, please send them to our site for more info or have them contact us at art@sweetriot.com.

Ethos Water & their mission

Last week I mentioned the NYU Columbia Subway Series and my friends, Peter and Jonathan, the founders of Ethos Water.  Their company is so compelling because their tie between a water product and world water issues is direct and engaging.  For every bottle sold, they give back to the world water crisis.  They use the tagline, "Every Bottle Makes a Difference."

Ethos' website is full of descriptions of their projects and their mission.  You can also find a significant amount of meaningful information on the world water crisis.

I learned about Ethos Water while I was starting sweetriot and reached out to the company and its founders to learn about their experiences.  Both Peter and Jonathan have always been there for sweetriot - this is another sign of a great company - they give back.

So here's my question for you.  How can we make our mission and good work clearer at sweetriot?  We have this social mission page here but what else can we do?  Should we give a % of our profits to non profits?  I'd love to hear your feedback and ideas.