One of the perks of being a pretty well-known blogger is that I get invited to lots of fun and interesting events. Last night was a great example: Local market Sprouts invited me to join a group of other bloggers (all women, I was the token guy) to meet the founder and CEO of Good Day Chocolate, and have some hands-on fun making chocolate with them. Chocolatiers? How could I have possibly said “no” to that invitation?
If you’re not familiar with Good Day Chocolate, you’re missing out on a really interesting cross-over or hybrid product: it’s medicinals enrobed in delicious chocolate and then coated in a candy shell. Think big M&Ms. What’s in them? Their core products are for energy, sleep and calm.
Energy contains taurine, caffeine, biotin, green tea extract, vitamin B6 and d-glucuronolactone, Sleep is formulated around bioavailable melatonin and Calm is chamomile, magnesium oxide and l-theanine. No surprise, the company was founded by an MD who was tinkering with how to make meds and supplements available to children in fun and tasty ways. He started out with lollipops, then they moved to caramel and now candy-coated chocolates.
Here’s the current range of in-store products:
Oh, oops. The Probiotic product in the photo isn’t quite on the market yet, but will be in the next few weeks. It was that product that we talked about the most, and about where the probiotics actually come from, how it’s all mixed together, etc. In fact, we got to mix probiotics into melted chocolate and try making our own:
Before we got to that point, founder Andrew Goldman melted down some chocolate in their very nice demo / research kitchen area:
Melting chocolate? You know I elbowed my way into the kitchen so I could get a closer look.
The photo doesn’t quite do the delightful smell justice but you can just imagine:
Turns out that when the company first started they were making all their products by hand and it was, well, tedious is one word for the task. Imagine, each individual Good Day Chocolate is roughly the size of a candy-coated Jordan almond and each has to come from a precisely mixed – and perfectly viscous – liquid chocolate.
We didn’t have to guess, however, because once we mixed the probiotics into our chocolate, we got to try using their hypodermic gear to actually measure the precise amount into each spot on the chocolate mold:
Turns out that’s rather ridiculously difficult. Much nicer to have larger industrial size equipment now that Good Day Chocolates are widely available at Sprouts, Whole Foods, and many other fine retailers.
Turns out these chocolates are a really interesting way for us parents to get doses of good, healthy supplements like turmeric, but it’s also good for children: I had my teen try a Sleep last night (just one; these are not meant to be consumed by the handful!) and she was out like the proverbial light.
If you haven’t tried one of the Good Day Chocolate various formulations, I encourage you to give it a try. They’re fun, highly portable in their tiny containers, and between the Calm, Energy, Probiotics and others, they might just make your day, yes, a bit better too.
Disclosure: I was invited to attend the Good Day Chocolate & Sprouts evening in return for my coverage here on my Web site and on social media. Yum.