Collaboration Case Study: Estelle Tracy on Makers Partnering with Craft Chocolate Educators
by David Nilsen
Welcome back to Collaboration for Chocolate Makers, my series in which we talk about how and why craft chocolate makers should be working with other businesses to expand their customer base, increase their revenue, and tell their story.
Today, we’re looking at a case study of a specific kind of creative collaboration to see what we can learn from it.
Estelle Tracy is a chocolate educator who runs 37 Chocolates and has been a frequent guest on the Bean to Barstool podcast. She reached out to me a few weeks back in response to this collab series, letting me know about a collaboration she was involved in in 2025.
Estelle had been curious about offering a tasting related to single varietal chocolate, and worked with Castronovo Chocolate to release a limited edition single varietal bar, and then led a virtual event to tell the story of the bar.
This is such a rich area for potential collaboration. While craft chocolate’s media ecosystem is still pretty thin at the formal level—we don’t have much in way of dedicated publications, or legacy media—we do have a thriving network of educated enthusiasts, educators, and (take a deep breath) influencers. Instagram is not what it used to be, obviously, but there is still a great community of craft chocolate folks on there, and a lot of these folks have dedicated followings, and they are committed to the success of craft chocolate as an industry, and their favorite makers and farms specifically.
Partnering with one of these folks could be a great opportunity for a craft chocolate maker, particularly when you take into account a collab or this sort is likely to be a pretty easy lift on the maker’s side. You don’t have to worry about coordinating ingredients and production with another producer since you’re going to be handling it all, so it would just involve planning the collab and then coordinating the marketing and storytelling with your collab partner.
While this is obviously a really cool opportunity for a chocolate educator, enthusiast, or influencer, there are definite benefits for the chocolate maker as well. Not only does the maker get free marketing and extended reach to a committed audience, but they can also utilize their collab partner’s expertise and labor in managing the technical and logistical details involved with virtual events (Zoom, Instagram Live, etc). The maker gets to focus on what they’re good at: making great chocolate and talking about it!
Because of the nature of this type of collab and the intended audience, this can be a great opportunity to experiment with unusual bars you might have trouble justifying otherwise. As Estelle explains, her audience was eager for the nerdy details of this single varietal offering.
“The trust that I had with my own audience, combined with these unique beans really attracted this subset of chocolate enthusiasts, and we had the numbers to show you can get people excited about this kind of geeky product,” she says.
As with every type of collab, it’s critical that you make sure your values and reputation align with the person you want to collaborate with. And you’re going to need to make sure everything is clearly planned out, discussed, and assigned in advance. But with due diligence, it’s pretty low risk, high reward collab opportunity.
Estelle already had a relationship of mutual respect with Denise Castronovo, so it was easy to suggest the collaboration without it feeling like a sales pitch. Estelle highlighted in our conversation that a relationship should be the starting point for any collaboration of this type. A lot of these relationships are likely already in place, but need to be fostered on an ongoing basis. I loved Estelle’s suggestion to let people know when you appreciated something they wrote, made, or said. This not only feels good for both parties, but also cements relationships. This is advice I give to breweries and chocolate makers when I’m speaking on media relations.
If you pursue a collaboration of this type, please let me know! I’d love to hear about how it went and what you learned. And hopefully, I’ll be pursuing one of these myself with Bean to Barstool soon.
Collaboration for Chocolate Makers series
Podcast Episodes
Why Do It, and General Considerations
Collaborating with Beverage Alcohol Producers
Collaborating with Other Craft Chocolate Makers
Creative Collaborations to Consider
Collaboration Case Study: Estelle Tracy
Blog Posts
Why It’s Worth It, and Things To Consider
Collaborating with Beverage Alcohol Producers, and Drinks-Based Collabs
Chocolate-Based Collabs with Beverage Alcohol Producers
Collaborating with Other Craft Chocolate Makers
Creative Collaborations to Consider
Collaboration Case Study: Estelle Tracy (you’re reading it!)