Software for chocolate professionals
AreaCacao is the first platform to combine formulation and sensory analysis. Score a recipe against the professional ranges for its formula type before you weigh a gram, and back it up with sensory panels that follow ISO methods: the same flavor, batch after batch.
For bean-to-bar makers, bonbon shops, production kitchens, schools and consultants selling to buyers who ask for proof: Michelin kitchens, importers and specialty retail.
A NORMAL WEEK IN THE SHOP
Fats, sugars and water get balanced by hand, in spreadsheets, one attempt at a time. There is no way to tell whether the emulsion holds until the batch is made — and by then the expensive part is already spent.
Flavor drifts between batches, and tasting by feel rarely explains why. Without a method to measure and compare, the same profile on every run is a hope rather than a promise — and nobody can say how long it holds before it starts to slip.
Recipes in a notebook, tasting notes on loose paper, costs in a spreadsheet that made sense at the time. Someone moves on, or enough months pass, and it has to be rebuilt from memory.
PILLAR 1 · FORMULATION
An engine that combines chef-curated reference formulas, a model trained on chocolate work and a deterministic physicochemical validator. The recipe arrives scored, balanced and annotated by a master chocolatier, ready for the bench.
CATALOG + IMPORT FROM A PHOTO
Upload a photo, a PDF or paste the text: you get the recipe structured and mapped against a catalog of +10,000 ingredients with macros, the 14 EU allergens and density. Every import shows its confidence score, so you know exactly what to double-check.
FILLING FORMULATOR · CHEF-VALIDATED
Describe the idea ("raspberry ganache with vanilla, 2 kg") and you get the recipe scored 0–100 against the professional ranges for its formula type — a bonbon ganache is checked on 6 chef-signed parameters: water, sugars, other fats, cocoa butter, water activity and pH — plus macro balance, master chocolatier notes and a shelf life band. You see immediately whether it sits inside the chef range or needs adjusting. Five complete families, each with its own technical criteria: ganache, soft caramel, pâte de fruit, creamy praliné and couverture truffle — you do not formulate a praliné with ganache logic.
COSTS AND MARGINS
A full cost breakdown across five blocks — ingredients, packaging and supplies, labor by role, equipment with depreciation, and overhead — with price and margin per sales channel and the break-even point for your shop. All of it on the professional editor, with macros per 100 g calculated for you and an A4 print carrying the EU 1169/2011 footer. That footer and the allergen calculation follow the European framework, not FDA or CFIA rules: check your own market before the sheet becomes a label.
The Filling Formulator — a hybrid of 312 professional reference formulas, a model trained on chocolate work and a deterministic validator — iterates until it converges on a valid score against the professional ranges for its formula type. If it cannot get there in 3 attempts, you are not charged for the work: credits are refunded automatically. Trust is not a promise here, it is a mechanism.
PILLAR 2 · SENSORY ANALYSIS
Your buyers expect the same flavor every time. With tastings that follow a method, you measure and compare every batch, lock in the profile of your chocolate and know how long it stays at its best. Quality that repeats, batch after batch, without putting a consultant on a day rate.
SENSORY SHELF LIFE · LIVE DEMO
You set the product, the storage conditions and how often you taste: the app builds the session calendar and you record your panel’s evaluations at each time point. From that data it fits a regression per attribute with a 95% confidence interval, flags the day each attribute crosses its threshold and which one is limiting, and recommends a date with margin. No more writing "18 months" by default.
Try it in the live public demo: the skeptic gets to check it with their own eyes.
Quantitative descriptive (ISO 13299/QDA + RATA), hedonic (ISO 11136) and discriminative (triangle ISO 4120, paired 2-AFC ISO 5495, duo-trio ISO 10399, ranking ISO 8587). Time-related tests: time-intensity (ASTM E1909) and aroma release (DTI). Panel training and calibration to ISO 8586:2023 with basic taste recognition (ISO 3972) and 3-AFC thresholds (ISO 13301 / ASTM E679). Statistics built in: means, SD, % defects, ANOVA + Tukey HSD.
Descriptive
Affective
Discriminative
Time-related
Panel training
Your own panel
Basic taste recognition (ISO 3972) plus 3-AFC thresholds. It infers each taster’s type (naive/selected/expert) and revalidates monthly on its own. No consultant for every tasting.
No app, no login
Your taster opens a QR code or a single-use link and scores from their phone — nothing to install, no account to create. Offline-first: if the connection drops, the tasting syncs itself when it comes back.
Difference you can show
Means, SD, % defects and ANOVA + Tukey HSD the moment you close the tasting. Compare batches, origins or suppliers in blind tests with real significance: a demonstrable p<0.05.
Your own vocabulary
A controlled vocabulary of 79 attributes you can edit and adapt to your origin, terroir or house style. Every batch gets described the same way and your buyer understands what they are reading: not the fixed table of a generic SaaS.
A dossier that holds up
Colored wheel, spider plot, Peryam hedonic histogram and shelf life curve, consolidated by batch, supplier or period. Generated in the browser, with no Puppeteer server behind it.
Tastings from paper
Photograph the paper sheet and the checked boxes, the QR code and the comments are read for you. You review with a green/amber/red flag and edit inline, without transcribing. Closed backend, live public demo.
Guest mode with a QR code or a single-use link (configurable expiry, revocable whenever you want). Offline-first: they keep scoring even if the connection drops and everything syncs on reconnect. Descriptive, hedonic, triangle, paired and duo-trio — on your panel’s phones, with no consultant day rate.
TWO PILLARS, ONE TOOL
Until now you formulated in a spreadsheet and quality rode on your memory and your palate. AreaCacao links the two halves of the job into one flow: from the first idea to a chocolate that tastes the same on every batch, without jumping between spreadsheets, notebooks and outside consultants.
Describe the filling and get the recipe structured and mapped to your catalog of +10,000 ingredients.
A 0–100 score against the professional ranges for its formula type, with master chocolatier notes, before you touch an ingredient.
Scale fillings from 50 g to 5 kg and chocolates from 1 to 50 kg without breaking the emulsion, with costs and an A4 spec sheet ready for the buyer.
Your ISO 8586 panel scores from their phones; the statistics (ANOVA, Tukey) come out on their own when you close the tasting.
Shelf life with a 95% CI and a technical PDF dossier to back your quality with the toughest buyer, or in an audit.
EVERYTHING THAT ALREADY WORKS TODAY
A page from your notebook, a PDF or pasted text becomes a structured recipe in seconds, mapped to your catalog. With a visible confidence score so you know what to review.
The 14 allergens required in the EU, worked out from your own ingredients, with macros per 100 g and the EU 1169/2011 regulatory footer on every printed sheet. The calculation follows the European framework (EU Regulation 1169/2011), not FDA or CFIA rules: the final label in your market is yours to verify.
A professional editor with macros per 100 g, method and costs. Composition, nutrition and allergens on one clean A4 print, ready to send to a B2B buyer.
+10,000 ingredients with macros, allergens and density, already loaded. And for the specific couverture your supplier sells you, create your own entry with their price per kilo and their nutrition: that cost flows into every recipe you have.
Colored wheel, spider plot, Peryam hedonic histogram and shelf life curve, consolidated by batch, supplier or period. Generated in the browser, with no dedicated server.
Every tasting ties back to a real batch of beans or mass, with sensory analysis per batch and comparisons by supplier or origin.
BUILT FOR CHOCOLATE · CHEF-VALIDATED
Trained on chocolate, not a general-purpose chat: it tells a ganache from a caramel and respects what each ingredient is doing there. A caramel is a caramel, not a rescaled ganache.
It leans on 312 professional reference formulas checked against chef-signed ranges, and on a deterministic physicochemical validator with 20 formula-type profiles and 125 range definitions. The parts that matter are not invented by an algorithm: they are confirmed by the technique.
Every output carries its confidence score and every operation is logged. If the Filling Formulator cannot reach the chef range after 3 attempts, it tells you and refunds your credits automatically.
Every figure points to a standard or to something you can verify — ISO 13299, p<0.05, 95% CI. The 312 reference formulas break down into 121 ganaches, 60 pâte de fruit, 47 pralinés, 46 caramels and 38 truffles. We do not invent customers or testimonials: these are the product’s own numbers, and the filling families grow every month.
PRICING
Start with formulation and move to Pro when you want the full sensory lab: tastings, shelf life, dossiers and panel management. No lock-in — cancel or pause in one click.
Formulation
$84 billed yearly · you save 42%
Formulation + sensory analysis
$180 billed yearly · you save 40%
All prices in US dollars, excluding applicable indirect taxes; they are added at checkout where required. No lock-in: cancel or pause in one click. Full sensory analysis (tastings, shelf life, dossiers, panel) lives in the Pro plan.
Busy month? Add one-off credit packs (150, 600 or 1,500, at 10%, 20% and 30% off). They never expire and you use them when you need them; you buy them inside the app.
Approximate usage; the real cost depends on the size and complexity of each operation.