When the food company Blue Stripes first began developing recipes in 2018, its CEO and co-founder, Oded Brenner, whirled through the company’s kitchen, tasting everything. Blue Stripes makes snacks out of every part of the cacao fruit — not just the beans, which are the essential ingredient in chocolate, but also the surrounding pulp and husks. From trays of granola to whole-cacao chocolate bars, “He could not walk by his product without breaking off a piece,” said Ben Stone, a former merchandising manager with the company.
“It’s obviously cliché to say that he’s like Willy Wonka because of the chocolate stuff,” he added. “But he really is.”
“The chocolate stuff” refers to Brenner’s previous venture. In the ’90s, he co-founded Max Brenner, an international chain of chocolate-themed restaurants. There, his decor choices (like factory piping that evoked a chocolate river) and kitschy culinary creations (like a liquid-centered chocolate egg) earned him a reputation as a real-life Willy Wonka. The media ate it up. “I was this chocolate celebri... Read more
