Our Story

The Beginning

Ours is a story that starts with our love for the mountains and nature. In 2018 while on a trip to the mountains, sitting on a hilltop, Sai had a moment of inspiration to create chocolates. An engineer at the time, he had no prior experience in culinary space, let alone chocolates. In hindsight, it feels like it was a spark that was given to us and we accepted it. That was the birth of “Cochoa” – a name also unwittingly selected on the same trip.
Soon, Sai quit his corporate job and took up an internship with a chocolate maker. It was a major shift from a corporate office to a chocolate factory, but as we would realise later, “shift” was to be a recurring theme in our journey. After 6 months of learning, it was time for Sai to start his own chocolate company and in early-mid 2019 the idea of “Cochoa” manifested into reality. Cochoa’s first home was in an industrial estate in suburban Mumbai. But mountains were always its true origin.
Cochoa was started with a clear mission of making exceptional chocolates, not just in India, but globally. Our principles emphasized innovation, sourcing ethically grown ingredients, raw and natural ingredients. Leaving no negative impact on the living world, but to only make it better. This motivated us to create some natural, earth friendly solutions where none existed. We looked as Cochoa as more than a chocolate company and a stepping stone in our journey with food.

Shift to the mountains

Being true to our principles we created delicious and innovative chocolates. At every step of the way we looked towards nature for guidance. But, when we looked out of our factory window, we only saw a concrete jungle. Something felt missing and we kept imagining Cochoa in the middle of nature.
The pandemic in 2020 made us reassess our lives and inevitably the question of moving to the mountains came up. This time, we took the plunge and by early 2021, we had moved to the mountains. it was like a new beginning for us. It just made sense for us to be here.

Becoming Oona

Mountains helped us develop a wholistic perspective towards our work, food and life in general. Several experiences with people, places and food made us realise that food is not simply a sum of its ingredients or the physical act of making and eating. It is an act of love, made with love. It is also a source of goodness and the right food is important for a sense of peace – a state of alignment in mind, body and soul.
Our determination towards creating not just chocolates, but food that was good became stronger. As a result, we took some bold but right decisions. We discontinued all our milk chocolates. Even though they were our bestselling products, we no longer wished to use dry milk – an ingredient that goes through high processing and contains oxidized cholesterol. We decided to make all our products super fresh i.e. not older than 15 days when shipped to our customers. Lastly, we made a forever commitment of doing good and making good food only from ingredients that were grown organically, sourced raw and minimally processed.
As we were in the process of making all these decisions, we kept getting this feeling that “Cochoa” our beloved name so far, was no longer able to represent all that we had grown into and wished to become. So started the search of a new name. Over the years, we had kept a lexicon of words that we liked and from there, leapt up or new name – “OONA”. It spoke to us with its simplicity, elegance and gravity. OONA – meaning “the one”, “all encompassing”, “universal”. We knew we had found the right name.
We also chose a new logo – a pinwheel. A symbol of freedom, joy and peace.
Oona marks another major shift in our journey. From here starts a new chapter. The one with peace and goodness – in food and life.