Before co-founding Raaka, a Red Hook, Brooklyn-based craft chocolate company, Ryan Cheney used to work tirelessly at his computer in the San Francisco Bay Area. The monotony of that lifestyle finally got to him and in 2008, he quit his job and set out to travel the world. While in Thailand he spent time at Agama Yoga, a tantric yoga school built upon the philosophy that it is equally valid to embrace the senses on the path to enlightenment as it is to reject them. This resonated with Ryan who preferred exploration and enjoyment over denial. He began studying raw chocolate and aphrodisiacs with the author of The Kama Sutra Kitchen. His passion for “raw” chocolate was ignited, and upon returning from his travels, he settled in New York and started Raaka with his business partner, Nate Hodge, in 2010. 

Ryan came up with the company’s name, which means “raw” in Finnish. Technically speaking, the chocolate is not raw since cacao beans will reach temperatures above 118 degrees Fahrenheit during the fermentation and drying processes. “Virgin” is the more accurate term that Ryan and Nate chose to describe their unroasted and minimally processed chocolate bars. Their style is unique. They embrace bold flavors and inclusions in their bars, reinvent the classics, and of course, bypass roasting, which is uncommon in the craft chocolate world. 

Ryan and Nate share a great love for chocolate but they are also deeply committed to doing business in a way that benefits employees, customers, community, farmers, and society as a whole.