Simply Sweet
Female founder Priscilla Terrero’s preservative-free, sustainably sourced Morito Chocolates proves that less is more.
Priscilla Terrero, founder for Morito Chocolates. Photos courtesy of Morito Chocolates.
Priscilla Terrero has a bold opinion about chocolate: Milk just gets in the way. Raised with the flavors of her Dominican heritage, the founder of Morito Chocolates is building her brand on a belief that real chocolate should taste clean, pure and true to its roots. (And that even a splash of dairy could dilute it.) Her handcrafted cacao confections lean on simple ingredients, such as organic cacao nibs, cacao butter and Himalayan salt. The magic is in the processing, which produces something smooth, with none of the bitterness you might expect from something sans dairy.
A trained pastry chef, Terrero recently led her Morito Chocolates to first place at the prestigious Hot Bread Kitchen’s Breadwinners Pitch, a live competition that spotlights rising food entrepreneurs. She pitched before a panel of industry heavyweights, including Basu Ratnam of Inday, a NYC Indian restaurant chain, and Jeni Britton, the Jeni of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. Her salted peanut butter chocolate bites won over those, and many more, discerning taste buds.
Salted peanut butter chocolate bites
The brand’s story and mission also resonated at the competition. Terrero ethically and sustainably obtains her cacao from Puerto Rico’s first registered cacao hacienda, a choice that speaks to how seriously she takes quality. Similarly, you won’t find preservatives or impossible-to-pronounce synthetic ingredients on her labels. “Here, handcrafted is not a claim — it is a practice we return to with every batch,” she says. The result? For anyone used to grabbing a supermarket bar, the difference is immediate: less sugar, no dairy to mute the flavor and a cacao with the kind of nuance mass-market sweets flatten out. In short, it’s chocolate that rewards slowing down.
Learn more about the brand and get your chocolate fix at moritochocolates.com.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Morito Chocolate
