Colorado resident moves to Oregon to reopen his Dagoba Organic Chocolate business

Boulder, Colo., has a lot going for it, from rarefied mountain views and skiing to a hip social scene.

So much so that the population rose from 85,616 in 1992 to 102,933 last year. That was enough for Frederick Schilling to leave it all behind and find a less hectic venue to manufacture chocolate.

After scouring the western United States, Schilling settled on the Rogue Valley, mapped out his future during a week-long visit last spring and reopened Dagoba Organic Chocolate off Table Rock Road in June.

"I love Colorado, but Boulder was getting very crowded and very expensive," Schilling says. "Boulder is a great place to have a business, especially in our industry because it had a great reputation for organic foods. But I was really wanting to make a lifestyle change."

Schilling, who turned 32 last Friday, studied world religion and music at Ohio Wesleyan University, toured with a rock ’n’ roll band, then moved on to Colorado where he was a chef at night and songwriter by day.

Pooling $100,000 from savings, friends and family, Schilling opened his chocolate factory two years ago, and his products soon found favor. Dagoba’s entry topped Food & Wine magazine’s "Best Organic Bars" list in December 2001. The San Francisco Chronicle named Dagoba "Best Organic Milk Chocolate" in its Feb. 6, 2002, edition. It’s referenced in the current edition of Bon Appetit as well.

"It got a lot of buzz around it quickly," he says.

But Boulder’s increasing urbanization was too much for Schilling. "We just pulled out an atlas and said ‘Where do you want to go?’

"We checked out a bunch of other locations in Colorado, but nothing felt right," he says.

The mountain states didn’t click and Arizona was too hot for chocolate. California was too crowded and Washington lacked sunshine.

"Some friends of ours had just moved here and bought a house," Schilling says. "I was apprehensive about moving to the Northwest because of the weather — like we’ve had the last few days. I associated Oregon with clouds, rain, dreary people and no sunlight. It scared me. I was used to having 340 days of sun a year. But they told us this is the ‘banana belt’ of Oregon."

The business reopened in Central Point with floor space doubled to 4,000 square feet. But there were glitches. The newly finished site’s air conditioning failed and tap water, used to cool the chocolate, was too warm.

"We were down six weeks, when we were only anticipating being down a couple weeks," he says.

The company annually imports roughly 50 tons of processed cocoa beans from co-ops, primarily in the Dominican Republic, as well as Costa Rica, Panama and Bolivia. Schilling says he pays fair trade prices for the beans, even when commodity prices are depressed. The beans are processed in The Netherlands before being shipped to the United States.

Dagoba enhances its line of 12 bars with exotic oils, fruits and nuts from around the world. It also makes baking powder, a not-so-instant hot chocolate mix, syrup for restaurants and industrial users such as truffle makers.

"We could sell them 2,000 pounds, 100 or whatever," he says.

While Schilling is something of a natural in the kitchen — and gets plenty of help from his sister Becky, 34 — he admits to never taking a business class. Fortunately, his dad, Jon Schilling, 58, is a retired IBM marketer and has assumed the role of chief financial officer.

The elder Schilling had never been closer to Jackson County than Portland before buying a home here when his son set up shop.

He’s helped weave the company through a maze of distribution and cash-flow decisions.

Dagoba’s products are carried by a wide variety of distributors and are on the shelves of Whole Foods, the country’s largest natural food chain, and Wild Oats, another large chain.

Locally, the bars are available at Terra Firma in Jacksonville, Ashland Food Cooperative and the Market of Choice in Ashland.

"We’ve got to be in wider distribution to compete with the larger competitors that are out there," says Jon Schilling. "We want to be able to reach customers that haven’t heard about us yet."

The company’s Web site — www.dagobachocolate.com — is being rebuilt. Their products are available online from a variety of sites.

Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail business@mailtribune.com