As­so­ci­at­ed Brands In­dus­tries Lim­it­ed (ABIL) has added a US-based prod­uct, OCHO Choco­lates, to its prod­uct of­fer­ings. Ocho Choco­lates are the first of its kind to be both man­u­fac­tured and sold in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from As­so­ci­at­ed Brands In­dus­tries Lim­it­ed:

As­so­ci­at­ed Brands In­dus­tries Lim­it­ed (ABIL), a lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­er of a wide range of qual­i­ty choco­late prod­ucts, is pleased to an­nounce the ac­qui­si­tion of a US-based Com­pa­ny, OCHO Can­dy.  OCHO Choco­lates are 100% Cer­ti­fied Or­gan­ic, non-GMO, Fair-Trade and Gluten-Free with a ve­g­an op­tion. The name OCHO was de­rived from the words Or­gan­ic CHOco­late, ho­n­our­ing its de­li­cious taste and in­no­v­a­tive spir­it.  
  
The OCHO Choco­late fac­to­ry, orig­i­nal­ly lo­cat­ed in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia, USA, has now re­lo­cat­ed to ABIL’s head­quar­ters in San Juan. ABIL Group CEO/Deputy Chair­man, Nicholas Lok Jack ex­plained the com­pa­ny’s lat­est achieve­ment, “There is no doubt that we met some chal­lenges, but we per­se­vered, and as a re­sult we were able to move a ful­ly func­tion­ing fac­to­ry from Oak­land to San Juan. This was a mon­u­men­tal task dur­ing the COVID-19 back­drop, and now for the first-time ever, US­DA or­gan­ic cer­ti­fied choco­lates are be­ing made in Trinidad and To­ba­go and sold to sev­er­al dis­tri­b­u­tion out­lets in the Unit­ed States such as Weg­mans, Rite Aid, Stop & Shop, Sprouts and Tar­get. This project is ex­treme­ly dear to us, and I would like to thank every­one who was in­volved from in­cep­tion up to this point.”   

He con­tin­ued, “In to­day’s world, health­i­er and sus­tain­able op­tions are im­por­tant to con­sumers. Or­gan­ic OCHO Can­dy is the on­ly bar that is gluten-free and cer­ti­fied or­gan­ic by US­DA in the re­gion. It is one of the most scrump­tious and sur­pris­ing choco­lates on the mar­ket and most im­por­tant­ly, af­ford­able and ac­ces­si­ble to every­one. We use the finest, cer­ti­fied or­gan­ic in­gre­di­ents as we craft our bars with house-made, small-batch fill­ings – a dif­fer­ence you can taste in every bite. The choco­lates are tru­ly all nat­ur­al which makes it bet­ter for you, and the en­vi­ron­ment. What’s in­side counts!” 

Our OCHO Choco­lates are avail­able in two sizes: OCHO Min­is which are sold in a pouch, and OCHO Bars. The OCHO Min­is are of­fered in Co­conut, Peanut But­ter, Caramel and Pep­per­mint, while OCHO Bars are Co­conut, Peanut But­ter, and Caramel with Peanut fill­ings. The Co­conut is 100% ve­g­an. There will al­so be sea­son­al of­fer­ings in the near fu­ture.

Arthur Lok Jack, Chair­man, As­so­ci­at­ed Brands In­dus­tries Lim­it­ed said en­ter­ing the or­gan­ic mar­ket was an easy de­ci­sion, “We looked at the busi­ness mod­el of OCHO and rec­og­nized that it was a range of prod­ucts that the com­pa­ny did not have, and so we thought it would do very well here. Af­ter in­creas­ing our in­ven­to­ry, we are now ready to dis­trib­ute to CARI­COM and our lo­cal mar­ket.” 
In ad­di­tion, Ronald Sam­path, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Charles Choco­lates, who is al­so in­ti­mate­ly in­volved in the project said, “We are tru­ly ex­cit­ed to in­tro­duce OCHO Choco­lates to the lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. We have over 48 years of choco­late ex­per­tise and our choco­lates are sold in some of the most de­mand­ing mar­kets world­wide and it’s those same prod­ucts which are avail­able in our lo­cal mar­ket. Not on­ly does ABIL have the in­dus­try knowl­edge and re­quired skill set to launch and man­u­fac­ture prod­ucts like these, we al­so have the nec­es­sary re­sources along with a top-class, state-of-the-art and mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing plant with the nec­es­sary cer­ti­fi­ca­tions that meet in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

Mr. Nicholas Lok Jack added, “As a mar­ket-ori­ent­ed com­pa­ny, we un­der­stand that our port­fo­lio of prod­ucts must res­onate with all our con­sumers who have dif­fer­ing needs and de­sires. This prod­uct range al­lows those who want or­gan­ic prod­ucts to be sat­is­fied. In this case, there is no com­pro­mise on taste as this de­li­cious-tast­ing prod­uct will al­so sat­is­fy those who do not seek or­gan­ic.” 

For the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, he hopes this achieve­ment res­onates and in­spires them to reach in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences, “As a man­u­fac­tur­er, As­so­ci­at­ed Brands In­dus­tries Lim­it­ed is 100% home-grown, and Or­gan­ic OCHO Can­dy will be sold and mar­ket­ed to our lo­cal con­sumers, the Caribbean re­gion, ma­jor US re­tail stores and soon world­wide. This is the vi­sion of in­ter­na­tion­al­iza­tion that we have em­braced, as we look to­wards the fu­ture and con­tin­ue to ex­pand our port­fo­lio with in­no­v­a­tive prod­uct of­fer­ings.”  His ad­vice to lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers is “to think big and de­vel­op a long-term plan”.

OCHO Choco­lates are now avail­able at stores and su­per­mar­kets, is­land wide at TT$10 for a choco­late bar and TT$25 for the pouch with min­is.