When Barbara Wilson and José Meza first stumbled across the Ecuadorian town of Mindo in the late 2000s, they weren’t interested in starting a new business—they were looking to enjoy their retirement after years of running a successful auto repair shop in Ann Arbor. Before long, however, they’d settled in the lush cloud forest village and immersed themselves in the intricate art of craft chocolate making, sending batches back to their relatives in Michigan that sparked a flurry of calls for more.
What began as an experiment blossomed into a hobby, and—soon after—a bold, international mission 16 years in the making: to restore chocolate back to its traditional, ambrosial roots. This is the origin of Mindo Chocolate Makers, the award-winning, woman-owned company that today is spearheading a “chocolate revolution.”
From the beginning, Mindo has always been a family-run business, with Wilson’s passion for food and Meza’s love of machinery working together to drive innovation at a time when there were less than 20 craft chocolate makers in the United States. Their daughter, Emily Meza-Wilson, even has childhood memories of helping her parents peel cacao beans by hand.
Today, Meza-Wilson is Mindo’s CEO and supply chain director, managing operations from Ecuador while her sister, Alicia Meza, handles affairs in the U.S. over 3,000 miles away at their factory in Dexter, Mich. Beyond them, the pair also has numerous relatives involved in several different roles at the company. “It’s a huge passion project for us,” Meza Wilson says. “We’re all very committed to the mission.”
When describing this broader mission, Meza-Wilson references a larger “chocolate revolution” emerging in the craft chocolate industry—one rooted in the overlooked history of chocolate. With the discovery by researchers in Ecuador of cacao in ancient ceremonial vessels, the history of chocolate dates back nearly 5,300 years. “Back then, it was a currency,” Meza-Wilson says. “You could trade a handful of cacao beans for an entire canoe. It was that sacred and special.”
Along with its education initiatives, Mindo also seeks to shift the cultural narrative on chocolate and promote its health benefits to a wider audience. “Chocolate is actually really good for you and has tons of health benefits,” Meza-Wilson says. “It’s filled with iron, zinc, magnesium, and tons of amino acids for muscle recovery.”
However, not all chocolate is created equal, with many large chocolate companies utilizing subpar cacao beans to mass-produce chocolate stripped of its natural flavoring and loaded with sugar. For Mindo, this practice is anathema, with their team instead approaching every stage of the chocolate making process with a meticulous, artistic sensibility.
As Mindo’s supply chain director, Meza-Wilson spends much of her time in Ecuador working to ensure their cacao suppliers have the highest fermentation standards possible. Additionally, because of severe droughts and deforestation in Africa—the world’s largest source of cacao—the price of beans skyrocketed in 2024, leading some Ecuadorian farmers to raze their own forests and begin growing a modified form of cacao whose taste Meza-Wilson describes as like “metal and gasoline.”
To combat these efforts, Meza-Wilson has begun incentivizing farmers to diversify their income by growing cacao and other crops, providing these vulnerable families with multiple income streams while also improving the company’s overall sustainability practices. “People usually think you either need to have something that’s sustainable or something that’s profitable,” she says. “But we’re here to change those systems so that we can build a better future for all of us.”
Visit Mindo’s Ann Arbor storefront for a taste of their award-winning, bean-to-bar chocolate, or book a tour of their factory/enroll in a chocolate making class at mindochocolate.com.