sweetriot blog - cacao | culture | cool!

Give Cool, Innovative, Yummy Gifts with a Mission!

Cross off those last few gifts on your holiday check list! There is still time to place an order and receive it before Christmas. The holidays are a golden opportunity to give cool, innovative, yummy gifts with a mission. By supporting sweetriot you are not only supporting a local NYC company but you are also aiding our mission to support fair trade practices, cacao from Latin America and original artwork by emerging artists.

Receive FREE Ground Shipping or $10 off Next Day or 2nd Day Air Shipping on U.S. orders over $79. Click SHIPPING to select the best shipping method in order to receive your order on or before Monday December 24th, 2012. Orders placed by 1 pm ESTMonday thru Friday are processed the same business day. Jingle Bell RIOT! 

Wine country, San Francisco, and Marissa

I flew out West to see my singing friends and for some meetings with Marissa, our super West Coast Catalyst,  and a few companies.  It's always a pleasure to go back to my old stomping ground - I adore wine country and also just love the sights and sounds of San Francisco.  (We made a stop at the DeLoach Winery - yum!)  Our little rioting friend, Evan, enjoyed it more than most.  :)

Try this trick next time you're flying.

I had a 940 pm flight to Florida last Friday – flights were super busy due to Easter.   I was hoping to fly early so my family wouldn’t have to be in the airport at 1230 am to pick me up. I called all week and they said there was no way to get on as all flights were sold out.  I went to the airport early anyway.   

The ground check in crew guy for the 645 pm flight seemed a bit grumpy.  I made sure I was on the standby list, and he told me status, class, etc. didn’t matter.  Due to my crazy travel, I had been upgraded on the 940 pm flight to first class but he didn’t care.    I went and asked him politely one more time for an update, and he said he wouldn’t know until 5 minutes before.

Finally, I visited again and said I was sorry but my family was waiting and I was hoping for an update.  This time I pulled out my secret weapon (a sweetriot tin of course).  He was surprised when I gave him a little sweet gift, and then he said, what’s your last name?

A few minutes later, I was called. First class, baby! I'm not kidding!!!  You should try sweetriot gift giving too!  It works wonders.  :)

Sundance Film Festival

Last year sweetriot visited the Sundance Film Festival to spread the joys of cacao.  This year, we are excited to launch our short film from our experience there.  It was in fact challenging as there was no clear place for an indie cacao company at the festival.  Check it out!

We hope you enjoy the film!

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. 

NYU/Columbia Social Change Subway Series!

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of the NYC subway series, but it is the time of year when the NYC teams (Yankees and Mets fans (or Dodgers back in the day)) shuttle back and forth for baseball play-off's.  Since 1903 this match up has occurred 14 times.

Yesterday we were having our own Subway Series between New York University (NYU) and Columbia.  There were two excellent events going on and sweetriot cacao was active at both of them.   This also meant we were having our own subway series.  (Nina was at NYU; Matt was at Columbia, and I shuttled back and forth. To top if off, Heidi was in Boston!) 

NYU held a great conference on social entrepreneurship and sweetriot dished out cacao to the attendees.  At Columbia the finals of the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) were held and sweetriot was a featured guest at dinner. Yum!  We were also semi-finalists in the GSVC competition this year.   :)  Peter and Jonathan, our friends at the visionary Ethos Water, were the keynote speakers.  More on Ethos later....

There is an amazing movement of people who really believe business can change the world --  these conferences brought together some of the most visionary thinkers in this area.  It's great to be with them and to know sweetriot is not alone in its beliefs -- careful actions by committed individuals truly do make a difference and will change our world.

Robots and cacao?

I was lucky a few days ago to spend some time with Helen Greiner, the Chairman and Co-founder of iRobot.  You may have heard me say that cacao will change the world -- Helen says similar things but she is talking about robots!  It's interesting how much I can learn from another entrepreneur even when their business in entirely different.  Helen is focused, tenacious, and visionary plus she is fun to be around.  Did I mention she loves sweetriot cacao too?  :)

iRobot builds amazing products which have consumer and military applications.  Helen's products discover landmines in areas of conflict and build cleaner homes with automated vacuums.   She began over 15 years ago with a passion to create change with robots and that passion has not wavered.  She can be proud of everything she has achieved so far - amazing robots which make a true difference, a real company, a great team, and more!  Check out the roomba and scooba if you haven't already.  Have you used one?...let us know!

Art and Wine in the City!

sweetriot was lucky to stop by some fabulous events this week in Chelsea and on South Street near the Seaport.  Our first stop was at the brand new Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Chelsea (newly moved from Soho).  The curator, Cordy Ryman, set up a beautiful show of emerging artists, including our friend and customer, Gabriel Shuldiner. 

Tonight it was on to the opening of a beautiful new wine store, Pasanella and Son Vintners, in the growing hub of downtown culture near South Street Seaport.   Tall ceilings, exposed brick, hand painted signage, and lovely wines are just a few of the lucky finds at this new store.

Both are well worth a visit!   Above you'll find a picture of Gabriel Shuldiner and his art and Jeffrey Hargrave and his Voodoo art at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery plus a photo of Marco and Becky, the founders of Pasanella and Son Vintners.

Sundance!

sweetriot is having an amazing time at the Sundance Film Festival.  I would have written sooner but this place is just a little bit nuts every single day!  We are out on the streets spreading cacao everywhere.

sweetriot has already been featured at the Yahoo! Music Cafe, the GenArt MySpace Beastie Boys party, The Queer Lounge, the Solo Dios Sabe party and more!  In fact, you can even find sweetriot at the NY State Film Commission's Filmmaker Lounge.  Pictured here is the Commissioner herself!

I had a chance to see a movie one early morning (movies play here from 830 am - midnight) and watch out for this one!  The House of Sand is absolutely beautiful, moving, and courageous filmmaking from Andrucha Waddington of Brazil pictured here.   

Lauren Curie Lewis from Salvage is a New Yorker and a real sweetheart pictured here with sweetriot.  The sweetriot team also saw The Hawk is Dying with Paul Giametti, who had another powerful performance. 

Signing off but I hope to be back soon with more news!

The very first 'Riot Roll' live from MacWorld, San Francisco

I took a few minutes today to stop by MacWorld in San Francisco. Wow – lots of inventiveness in one place.   And if you may ask, yes, this is relevant to sweetriot Cacao as we will continue to strive to innovate and design in an out of box way…thus, following companies like Apple is an important source of inspiration. Plus, we have been called the iPod of the chocolate world.  Wow, how cool!  J

You’ve probably heard some of the Mac press about today, so let’s instead go behind the scenes on the actual trade show floor. 

I’ve had this idea for a while to create a Riot Roll of cool companies, which we rioters appreciate. Today I am starting the first Riot Roll in honor of MacWorld 2005.

What constitutes placement on the Riot Roll….well, the company must be…

• A leader not a follower
• Open to the world
• Innovative
• Down to earth and approachable
• Rioters! 

The Riot Roll for today includes...

iSkin – they were there first creating protective skins for our iPods. They are a cool group of young founders from Canada who put design first.  One of their latest designs is Japanese Anime created by an Italian artist.

Crumpler – this Aussie company has a great vibe and great products. They are approachable, open, and a bit quirky. Their giveaway at the show was a red apple with a crumpler sticker on it.

Honorable mentions include

PumpPod – fitness on your iPod

iFace – a Taiwanese based company with beautifully designed skins

Etchamac – they can etch amazing artwork on your computer shell – wow!

LifePod – now you can buy a boombox bag and plug in your iPod!

Lastly, I had a chance to see my Apple friend, Pedraum, who has been a great source of support and inspiration for sweetriot.  Thanks, Pedraum!

Tonight sweetriot will be featured at the iSkin MacWorld Party in downtown San Francisco, so I better run!  Signing off live from MacWorld and San Francisco….I hope you’ve enjoyed the very first Riot Roll!