Raw Xocolatl
Company description
Raw Xocolatl is a bean-to-bar craft chocolate factory and café in Brownsville, roasting, hand-sorting, cracking, winnowing, and conching small batches of ethically sourced cacao from around the world — Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Uganda, the Philippines, and Colombia among them — into chocolate bars, drinks, nut butters, and pastries. By its own account, it's the first true "bean to bar" chocolate factory in Brownsville and the 10th in the state of Texas. The company applied to the 2021 Startup Texas Pitch Summit under the name "Raw Xocolat" (the spelling used on the application itself), sponsored by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC), and won a $20,000 grant.
Founder Jesus Bojorquez is a U.S. Army veteran who earned a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Sciences from UTRGV. While studying cardiovascular disease within the local community as a student project, he came across research showing cacao's polyphenols have real cardiovascular benefits — a discovery that, combined with his own roots as a first-generation Mexican immigrant, pulled him toward chocolate making instead of the pharmacy-school path he'd originally planned. His wife and co-founder, Pamela Bojorquez, studied trophology (the nutritional science of food combining) and took chocolate-making courses at the Chocolate Academy in Mexico City alongside Jesus. The two started Raw Xocolat in 2016, selling chocolate at the Brownsville Farmers Market as a side project while Jesus finished his degree, self-financing roughly $100,000 into the business over the years — including a $40,000 cash-out refinance on a house the couple owned in Washington State. They opened their first storefront on Morrison Road in May 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, after a difficult landlord dispute during buildout left them paying thousands more in advance rent than planned.
Founders: Jesus Bojorquez and Pamela Bojorquez
Program: 2021 StartUp Texas Pitch Summit
Website: rawxocolatl.etsy.com
Facebook: facebook.com/RawXocolat
Address: 500 E. Morrison Rd, Suite I, Brownsville, TX 78526