Chocolate should be treated as food, not candy
Susan and Jeff, husband and wife and co-owners of VOLO, are both trained chefs. They craft bean-to-bar chocolate from ultra-premium cacao and the finest ingredients.
We're chefs before we're chocolate makers. For years we ran the kitchen at a small beach resort at the southern tip of Baja California, and that's where we fell in love with the flavors and soul of Mexican chocolate.
We came home to Sonoma County with a recipe we couldn't stop thinking about, and in 2016 we started VOLO. We still believe chocolate should be treated as food, not candy: real ingredients, made from scratch, with the same care we'd give any dish.
Thank you for tasting what we make.
Five chapters of VOLO
Two chefs fall for Mexican chocolate
As executive chefs at a small beach resort at the southern tip of Baja, we spent many happy hours experimenting with the flavors of Mexican chocolate. It wasn't long before we had a bean to bar recipe we felt was something special.
Back home, we started VOLO
We set up our production studio in Windsor and started making chocolate with all the love and passion it deserves. Today we make hundreds of bars a week, with local ingredients whenever we can: Clover dairy, Wolf Coffee and Meyer lemons from our own trees.
To the source
Great chocolate starts with great cacao. We buy ultra-premium organic beans through Uncommon Cacao, from farmers' associations in Guatemala's Lachua region and Haiti. Their Transparent Trade model goes a step beyond Fair Trade. We also source from Chiapas, Mexico and the Philippines.
Chefs, not candy makers
We roast the beans, winnow them on a machine we built ourselves, refine and conch for 48 hours, then temper, mold and wrap every bar by hand. It's how we'd cook any dish: from scratch, with the best ingredients we can find.
Wrapped in quilts by Jeff's aunt
The art on every wrapper is a photograph of a hand-dyed quilt by Cathy Shanahan, a renowned textile artist and Jeff's aunt. Each bar has its own distinctive design.
Life at VOLO
As featured in
Thank you for being here
Please enjoy all of our deep chocolate flavors!
— Susan & Jeff
