A Serendipitous Spark

Ten years ago, David Herrick stumbled across an article suggesting chocolate could be made at home. That spark of curiosity grew into late-night experiments in his kitchen, marked by trial and error: sourcing poor-quality local beans, improvising roasting and winnowing, and overcoming obstacles like appliance failure and burnt chocolate paste.

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Undeterred by challenge, David—joined by his wife Janelle, who inspired the drive for pure, ingredient-conscious chocolate—turned each hurdle into an opportunity for deeper learning. Avoiding shortcuts, they sourced and tested dozens of single origins, meticulously roasting and comparing flavors at home. Their dedication paid off when a panel of friends, family, and even a chocolate judge recognized the stunning quality of their bars. This became the beginning of Foundry: a pursuit of two-ingredient bars that let each origin shine and promise a fresh experience of what dark chocolate can be.

“Anything that's a challenge, that's the path I want.”

Origins That Shaped a Maker

Of the 51 origins they trialled, a handful stand out as almost mythical. “I remember this origin from Trinidad and Tobago—sourced from Meridian Cacao in North America. There was just one sack, and I got a one-kilogram sample grown by a family farm. The chocolate from that… it literally tasted of rum and raisin. Still one of the best I’ve ever had. I stretched out every gram—but that family stopped growing cacao, and just like that, a whole origin was lost.”

Others, like Akesson’s Madagascar, became benchmarks for brilliance—fruity, lively, unforgettable. “But when Foundry launched, Madagascar bars were everywhere. Even though Akesson’s is incredible, we wanted to stand apart. Maybe someday it’ll come into our range—nowadays there’s less Madagascar on the market. But back then, we wanted our own stamp.”

And sometimes the challenge wasn’t taste, but logistics. “There was a farmer in Papua New Guinea, part of a trade-for-aid project. Getting beans from his farm all the way to New Zealand proved almost impossible. Each link in the supply chain revealed hard truths: you have to check not just flavour, but whether you can physically source, import, and sustain it. It’s heavy due diligence now before committing, because the story could end with one broken link.”​