KYYA Chocolate- Rick Boosey

Flavors of Northwest Arkansas

On this edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas podcast, we’re talking CHOCOLATE and all sorts of stories with KYYA Founder Rick Boosey, but first in Food News:

• Zelli Pasta is now... a deli? Yes, hear about Zelli deli from one of the owners.
• House 1830 is celebrating the Lunar New Year, and you can too.
• Another longtime Fayetteville bar will be shutting its doors.
• It’s Bentonville Restaurant Week!
• Get your tickets now to the AACF Soup Sunday!

Rick Boosey started KYYA Chocolate after a trip to Uganda where he saw how underprivileged kids in an orphanage were living. He’s a serial entrepreneur and decided that was how he was going to help that orphanage.

Among other things, cacao (or cocoa beans) is a natural resource in Uganda, and that’s how KYYA Chocolate was born. But it wasn’t that simple- Rick had to learn to make chocolate and YouTube videos weren’t cutting it.

Speaking of KYYA Chocolate, how did they come up with that name?

After many tries, they started making good chocolate. Hear who bought Rick’s first order and for how much!

Rick has made several trips to source cacao straight from the farmers to cut out the middleman, and in doing so, has had some close calls and harrowing experiences in South America. He tells those stories.

KYYA went from making 25 chocolate bars in a week to having over 300 items and making 5,000 items in a day. Hear about that progression.

Rick talks about learning from missteps and even a funny story about buying barcodes from barcodes.com... or eBay (we think).

So much storytelling, and you’ll hear it on this episode of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas.