Malena Lopez-Maggi

Co-founder, artist, and designer of The Xocolate Bar, an award-winning Berkeley artisan chocolate company. Twenty years of hands-on experience transforming imaginative ideas into original chocolate products, packaging, visual identities, and memorable sensory experiences. My practice brings together studio art, food science, storytelling, and the practical knowledge gained from building and operating an independent creative business.

Professional Experience

The Xocolate Bar · Berkeley, California
Co-Founder, Artist & Designer | 2006–2026

• Co-founded and operated an award-winning artisan chocolate company for twenty years, bringing hundreds of original recipes, products, and visual concepts from idea to market.
• Conceived and executed the company's chocolate product design, graphic design, packaging, visual identity, marketing, brand storytelling, and customer-facing communications.
• Developed, tested, refined, and scaled chocolate recipes; established production methods, workflows, quality standards, and practical troubleshooting processes.
• Managed supply purchasing, ingredient sourcing, vendor relationships, budgeting, bookkeeping, and financial administration.
• Created operational systems, procedures, and documentation; wrote internal communications.
• Wrote external communications, negotiated client contracts, developed proposals, and coordinated custom commissions from inquiry through delivery.
• Navigated administrative, regulatory, and compliance requirements across food production, retail, and wholesale operations.
• Expanded wholesale distribution to nearly 400 independent boutiques nationwide and developed custom projects for museums, universities, corporations, and cultural organizations.

Selected Commissions

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco — Designed and produced a custom chocolate inspired by a sculpture in the museum's collection, from initial concept through finished retail product.

KQED — Created a Bay Area Bar for fundraising and appeared as an expert panelist on Bay Area Beautiful Bonbons, a live program.

Mills College Art Museum — Designed and produced a chocolate buffet for the museum's centennial celebration.

Sandra Cisneros — Created custom packaging resembling her novel Martita, I Remember You to celebrate the book's launch.

HBO Max — Designed and produced custom chocolate bars for the launch of Julio Torres's Color Theories special.

Selected Original Chocolate Curricula

Developed original chocolate education spanning sensory evaluation, food science, cultural history, craft, design, and interdisciplinary art. The following programs distinguish completed instruction from independently developed course concepts.

• Chocolate Tasting & Sensory Evaluation (designed and taught): The Chocolate Snob's Guide to Tasting, Single-Origin Chocolate, and An Edible History of Chocolate — Tamalpais Community Education.
• Flavor & Color Perception (designed and taught): An experimental chocolate-based program exploring how visual cues shape taste perception — Chabot Space & Science Center.
• Food-Safe Moldmaking (designed and taught): Techniques for casting edible materials — American Craft Council Show.
• Chocolate Ofrendas (designed and taught): A hands-on workshop exploring luster dusting and assembly techniques to create Día de los Muertos altar pieces from chocolate skulls, flowers, and other molded forms — Meta headquarters.
• Edible Milagros: The Poetry of Chocolate (designed): A five-session interdisciplinary experience combining guided tasting, reflective writing, drawing, metalwork, chocolate tempering, casting, and a closing sipping-chocolate ritual.
• All About Chocolate (designed): A five-course sequence covering Tasting & Sourcing, Tempering & Molding, All About Flavor, Making Bonbons, and Packaging & Presentation, incorporating hands-on demonstrations and sensory evaluation.

Artistic Practice & Design Philosophy

My independent studio art practice informs the visual imagination, material experimentation, and storytelling I bring to chocolate and product design.

Throughout my work at The Xocolate Bar, I explored chocolate as both a culinary ingredient and an artistic medium, using unexpected flavors, humor, poetry, and visual design to create products that invited curiosity and delight.

My approach brings together concept, material, process, and presentation. Rather than separating creative vision from production, I work hands-on to discover how an idea can become a tangible, reproducible object without losing its original character.

Explore my art portfolio at malenas.art

Education & Professional Training

• MFA, Studio Art — Mills College, 2015, summa cum laude
• BA, Studio Art — Mills College, 2013
• Food Science Short Course — University of California, Davis
• Professional Chocolate Production Training — Melissa Coppel Chocolate & Pastry School

Selected Recognition

• 2007 — San Francisco International Chocolate Salon, Best in Show
• 2020 — Good Food Award, Cacao Fruit Jam
• 2023 — San Francisco International Chocolate Salon, Best New Product (Faux Brie / Chocuterie)
• 2025 — USA TODAY 10Best Readers' Choice, #7 Best Chocolate Shop in the U.S.

Chocolate Consulting

Available for focused, practical consultation in chocolate product development, recipe formulation, scaling, production troubleshooting, packaging, and product design.

$150/hour · Live consultation

Inquiries: owner@xocobar.com