PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Pure 7 Chocolate co-owners Julie MacQueen, left, and Carrie Raho show one of their chocolate bars.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
LYNN — When Julie MacQueen and Carrie Raho, co-founders of Pure 7 Chocolate — a business that recently moved to Lynn — decided they wanted to make chocolate bars mixed with honey (as opposed to typical processed sugars) they were told it couldn’t be done.
“They told us to put it (the chocolate and honey) in a jar with a spoon and sell it,” MacQueen said.
MacQueen said she and Raho contacted chocolatiers for advice on how to proceed when they had their initial honey-sweetened chocolate idea, and were told “you can’t temper it.”
Raho said chocolate and any type of moisture, such as honey, do not mix at all and moisture changes the consistency of the chocolate. She said the recipe, on which the longtime friends started working in 2012, took about a year to perfect, with about 1,000 chocolate bars thrown away in the process.
“We finally had the moment where it was amazing,” Raho said. “We worked really hard.”
The pair started selling their honey-sweetened chocolate in 2013, as part of their business, Pure 7 Chocolate, then based in Carlisle. The wholesale chocolate company moved to Lynn within the past month and is now at 82 Sanderson Ave.
The friends say Pure 7 Chocolate has its name for specific reasons. The pair were friends for seven years when they started the business, have seven children between them, and there are seven main ingredients in their chocolate. Raho said “pure” describes what the chocolate bar is about, which is ingredients of the highest quality and there is “no garbage in our bars,” they say.
There is no soy, dairy or gluten in the product.
Both women are health conscious, which initially sparked the idea. MacQueen said before the business was even an idea, she was on the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) diet, which is similar to the more commonly known Paleo diet. She said with that diet, the only sweetener allowed is honey.
“I missed chocolate,” MacQueen said. “There was no honey-sweetened chocolate. I couldn’t have it for a few years.”
So, MacQueen said the pair decided to start making it themselves.
Now, they are beginning their third year of sales and sometimes find it difficult to keep up with orders. MacQueen said they outgrew the Carlisle space, which is what brought them to Lynn. They were also attracted to the Sanderson Avenue building, which is full of other food businesses, as well.
“Now that we’re here, it’s working out really well,” Raho said. “It’s a more controlled environment. Here we can have total control over the chocolate.”
The company is wholesale, with stores placing orders for the product. MacQueen said their chocolate is in all Whole Foods stores in the Northeast region and is also in various specialty stores. Raho said the pair is trying to expand out of the Northeast region with their buyers and become more national. Individuals are also able to go to the Pure 7 Chocolate website and place orders.
“We want everybody to have healthy chocolate,” Raho said. “We feel the world should be able to have this chocolate.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected].
