Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | September 30, 2019 | wbjournal.com BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor Goodnow Farms is making a name for itself with high-quality, responsibly-sourced products Fair, passionate chocolate L ess than a decade ago, Tom and Monica Rogan were mak- ing chocolate in their kitchen at home, just a hobby for two lovers of the sweet stuff. Now, they and their chocolate com- pany, Sudbury's Goodnow Farms, are winning prestigious food awards. If starting one's own chocolate company might be a dream realized, the Rogans have taken it a step further. e Rogans, who make chocolate in a commercial kitchen behind their old 1700s farmhouse, aren't in it just for a hobby. e company's bars are sold in 300 stores nationwide, and its chocolate-making abilities are already winning accolades. Goodnow won eight awards this year by the Academy of Chocolate, and others by the International Chocolate Awards, Good Food Awards and the Northwest Chocolate Festival. It won six awards by the Specialty Food Asso- ciation this spring, including the three best dark chocolates. "ey're a standout brand," said Bri- an Cisneros, the founder and producer of the Northwest Chocolate Festival, where Goodnow Farms won a gold and a bronze last year from among more than 300 entrants. "e awards they've won are most likely just the beginning for them," he said, calling Goodnow Farms among the best in the country. Practice made perfect It's a long way from the days of experimenting while the couple lived and worked in Los Angeles, Tom in TV production and Monica in real estate. "People told us, 'Be prepared to throw away chocolate,'" Tom Rogan said, giving a tour of the Goodnow Farms facility. "And we threw away a lot of chocolate." e evolution into Goodnow Farms – named for the farm on which the Rogans' and other houses now stand – wasn't nearly so fast or easy. Chocolate making was a hobby for three or four years until the Rogans decided in 2010 to sell his stake in the reality and documentary TV production company Authentic Entertainment, which won a Daytime Emmy award in 2013 for a Food Network show, "Best ing I Ever Made," for which he was one of four executive producers. e Rogans moved to Massachusetts to start the business full-time. Tom, who was born in Springfield, and Monica, who is from Baltimore, did their homework, talking today about fermentation, drying and roasting times like people who've been in the industry for far longer than they have. rough attending chocolate industry confer- ences, reasearch and word-of-mouth, Germany $4.4 billion Belgium $2.9 billion Netherlands $1.8 billion Italy $1.7 billion United States $1.6 billion Poland $1.6 billion Canada $1.5 billion France $1.4 billion United Kingdom $852 million Switzerland $802 million Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2016) Chocolate exporters Tom and Monica Rogan run Goodnow Farms out of a small kitchen behind their house on the former farm for which the chocolate- maker is named. Chocolate is most often the product of cacao grown in Africa, Central America and South America, but the largest exporters are in Europe and North America. PHOTO/CONTRIBUTED F O O D & D R I N K I S S U E FOCUS

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