Roots: Down-to-Earth Chocolates

You may have noticed Roots Chocolates at a grocery store or farmers market. The no-nonsense, brown box with a vintage photo of a farmstead and earthy colors are indicative of what’s inside.

Lisa Nelson runs Roots Chocolates with her partner Angela Graham. The business idea took shape in 2009 when Nelson was laid off from her job in IT.

“I didn’t want to go back into the corporate world,” she says. “So I asked myself, ‘What do I love?’ and ‘What can I do with this farm?’” The answer: locally-sourced chocolates.

“Roots” has two meanings for her business name. One, Lisa is a fourth generation farmer who has returned to her roots; and two, herbs and fruit grown right on the farm go directly into her chocolates.

Her Norwegian ancestors started farming 100 acres of land five miles outside of Wisconsin Dells in the 1860s. Nelson grew up milking cows and baling hay. For her, chocolate-making is a return to the things she loved as a child. “I always had one hand in the cookie jar and loved making desserts with my mom,” she says.

She moved back to the farm in 1991 when her dad passed away. After working for several decades in IT, she relishes chocolate-making’s opportunity for innovation. “I like change,” she says. “I love creativity, and I love chocolate.”

Nelson uses local ingredients from her farm and other local farms to make dark, single-origin truffles. She grows mint and basil for her 2014 award-winning chocolate mint basil truffle. Garden-grown thyme and oregano are regularly taste-tested for new flavor combinations. On-farm tours allow customers to view, feel and taste the local ingredients going into the truffles. “We use real fruit, not powders,” she says.

She grows dozens of fruits on her 30-acre farm including pears, apples, quinces, cherries, raspberries, elderberries, honeyberries, gooseberries and pawpaw. From May through July, she uses the homegrown fruits to create “pop- up” chocolates. The fruits are pureed, seeds removed, then cooked down and added to the ganache. She freeze-dries raspberries to use year-round in her RaspberryBV truffle. The seasonality of produce means different chocolates are crafted at different times of the year. Quince is the last fruit picked, so it is the last seasonal chocolate of the year.

She is always looking for new things to grow, but it takes patience. Fruit trees take years to flower and produce, so she also sources from neighbors and farmers market acquaintances. “I love collaboration,” she says. “I like to support other farmers.”

Unfortunately for chocolate lovers, cacao does not grow in Wisconsin. But Nelson honors chocolate’s roots and supports small-scale farmers in Central and South America.

By sourcing cacao directly from farms and from conscientious importers, she can ensure money is going back into farming communities. She tries to visit farms once or twice per year to vet their processes and share with the farmers the delicious truffles their hard work helped create.

When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, cacao farms were damaged. Nelson decided to visit and source chocolate from there so she could support farmers and contribute to the country’s recovery. She returned from a 2019 trip with more than 80 pounds of beans. These were roasted and used in her single-origin chocolate bars.

“I’m a purist,” she says, acknowledging the array of milk and dark chocolates that can be produced from the same cacao beans. “That’s what’s fun about the craft chocolate movement.”

She wants to educate people about how chocolate is traditionally made. When people visit her table at markets, many do not recognize the cacao pod she displays. The tropical plant’s beans are roasted much like coffee and turned into nibs to make chocolate. Roots chocolate bars then take about three days to create, which includes adding a sweetener such as honey or maple syrup and tempering it. The truffles take up to a week to make as she incorporates fruit and other flavors into the ganache filling and outer shell.

The time and energy she puts into crafting each uniquely flavored chocolate pays off. Roots Chocolates truffles have won numerous international awards, including a 2019 Good Food Award for Carmato, an heirloom tomato caramel. Other Roots truffles include a wild rice truffle sourced from Minnesota (2019 International Chocolate Award winner) and Beer Naked, a Wisconsin beer truffle topped with pretzel bits. Her personal favorite is the Sass-Squash, with farm- grown squash, Wisconsin maple syrup, honey and ginger. She also sells crystallized cacao nibs and her bean-to-bar 70 percent dark chocolate sourced from Mexico.

Despite international and local success, Nelson maintains a strong sense of community with fellow farmers and camaraderie with customers old and new. She says the ultimate test is the look on a customer’s face when they bite into one of her creations and “their eyes roll back.”

She measures her success by people buying her product and enjoying it. “If you put the love into it, people will be able to taste that,” she says.

Find Roots Chocolates at Metcalfe’s Market, Sundara Spa, the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and online. Roots offers on-farm tours and tastings from June through September. They can accommodate groups up to 50 and on-farm chocolate pick-up, just call in advance to schedule.