The Vision
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Lumineux Chocolate was born out of our desire to bring light to our community through intentional hospitality and responsible delight. We craft small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate with as much care for the farmers creating our beans as the customers enjoying our bars.
The Opportunity
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We’re crafting the highest quality premium chocolate, the fastest-growing segment of the overall chocolate industry in the United States. The premium chocolate market has grown by double-digits year over year for the past 5 years.
We are the first and ONLY chocolate producer in upstate South Carolina with our closest competitor in the market out of Asheville, North Carolina. Our extensive restaurant experience allows us to create unique flavors and develop out-of-the-box recipes that distinguish Lumineux from other chocolates.
The Company
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Lumineux Chocolate seeks to be a beacon of light to others through the transformative power of great chocolate and intentional hospitality. We produce the highest quality chocolate using only carefully sourced cacao with transparent, ethical supply chains. Not only can customers see the bean origins on the individual bars, but they can read about the farms at each source on our website.
Our desire is for our customers to feel like they are a part of our family. To encourage this, we invest time in communicating frequently with our customers through a monthly newsletter and social media. We keep them updated on things like new sourcing relationships, upcoming products and limited releases.
The Market
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While we hope Lumineux Chocolate is appreciated by all, our main focus is on those who value locally made, artisan products that have a responsible, ethical supply chain. We build relationships with our customers through pop-ups at places like hotel lobbies, farmer's markets, and conventions. But the beautiful thing about our bars (besides their delicious taste!) is that they fit right in on the counters of hip specialty coffee shops, classy wine bars, and boutique hotels.
We started by selling our chocolate at the Travelers Rest Farmers Market. This allowed us to connect better with our target market, as well as test potential new products. We also were able to educated the market on what makes our chocolate unique. One of the most effective (and popular) ways we do this is through tastings! 😋 Due to COVID, we moved our tastings online, and the positive response has been overwhelming. Due to demand, we're now adding on private events with couples and small groups.
The Growth plan
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We launched at the end of March, and due to COVID, we could only sell online, accelerating our e-commerce channel development. We also began establishing our wholesale business, securing 22 wholesale accounts across upstate SC and Columbia. Despite the pandemic, we have made great strides in establishing our company within the local market and in exploring the national e-commerce market.
The Goods
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Lumineux Chocolate has a focused product line consisting of 10 varieties of chocolate These varieties have 8 dark chocolates, 2 milk chocolates, and 5 chocolate bars with inclusions. The line also includes collections that contain 3 tasting tablets in special packaging.
Finally, the line includes bulk dark and milk chocolate discs and chunks that can be mixed or baked into all sorts of delicious concoctions.
The Sources
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Lumineux Chocolate sources several of its cocoa beans through Uncommon Cacao. Uncommon Cacao is a cocoa bean supplier that emphasizes transparent trade. It establishes transparency and accountability for stakeholders, enabling consumers to see real data through the supply chain. This establishes long-term partnerships through new pricing benchmarks and shifts the power dynamic to the farmers.
This transparency benefits Lumineux Chocolate as well as our customers by ensuring ethical farming practices and fair pay for the farmers. It also gives us great insight into the farmers growing the beans for our chocolate. Two of the key farming co-ops Lumineux Chocolate uses through Uncommon Cacao are Semuliki Forest and ABOCFA.
Through our partnerships, we source the highest quality cacao from all over Africa and Madagascar.
The Mission
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Our mission isn’t just a line that sounds good, it is our guiding principle. We measure the success of all that we do by how well it fits our mission statement. The world is not always sunshine and happy days. However, we truly believe in the power that intentional sharing of good food (chocolate!) has in brightening somebody’s day. It is our mission to be that light to all, whether your day is filled with sunshine or a few clouds.
We carry out our mission by applying a set of core values:
❤️ People come first. Period. Everyone, from our customers to our employees to the farmers growing our cacao, should be treated with the highest respect.
📝 Do your next task better than your last. We seek to put out the highest quality products and service, and that is only achieved by continually improving and putting aside complacency.
🌎 Make a positive impact on the world around you.
The Team
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Benjamin Snyder: Co-founder, Director of Operations
Benjamin has worked in the food industry for 14 years in a variety of positions, leading to an executive pastry chef in several bakeries and restaurants. This experience gives him great insight into developing flavors and quality in food products. Benjamin’s skills with minimizing food and labor costs, managing inventory, and menu development are strong assets to Lumineux Chocolate.
Rebecca Snyder: Co-founder, Head of Production
Rebecca holds a degree in Culinary Arts and also has a background in the food industry. She has worked in restaurants and bakeries, as a baker, cake decorator and pastry chef. Rebecca’s attention to detail contributes greatly to her role in marketing, and her pastry background makes her invaluable to product development at Lumineux Chocolate.
- This offering is for Revenue Sharing Notes in Lumineux Chocolate LLC.
- The minimum investment is $100.
- The investment multiple is 1.5x
- Business's Revenue share is 4.5% - 8.5%, calculated on a linear scale depending on the amount raised. The revenue share percentage goes up as the amount raised increases.
A “rev share” is a debt structure that works like a royalty payment. The business agrees to pay a set percentage of their revenue until the investor is paid back a “multiple” of their investment. For example, a business may agree to pay 5% of their revenues each quarter until investors make 1.5x (the multiple) their original investment. As an investor, you would expect to turn a $1,000 into $1,500. The amount of time it takes to pay is dependent on the business’ revenue.
For example (based on hypothetical offering amounts raised):
Due Diligence
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Form Check Completed! Click here to review.
What is it?
A review of disclosures, financials, and all filing information to ensure compliance and consistency with Rule 201 of Regulation CF.
Do you plan to expand outside of South Carolina?
We certainly do! Our goal for 2021 (with the help of this campaign) is to:
- Reach 50 wholesale customers nationwide
- Participate in 2 weekly farmers markets, 35 pop-up markets, and 2 chocolate conventions
Who do you source your beans from?
Lumineux Chocolate sources several of its’ cocoa beans origins
through Uncommon Cacao. Uncommon Cacao is a cocoa bean supply
company that emphasizes transparent trade. Two of the key farming co-ops Lumineux Chocolate uses through Uncommon Cacao are Semuliki Forest and ABOCFA.
Where do your beans come from?
We have chosen African beans for the depth and complexity of their flavor profiles. Our beans come from farms all across Africa and Madagascar.
You can see a map of all our sourcing locations here.
What does "Bean-to-Bar" mean
Many chocolatiers take preprocessed chocolate and simply remelt and make it into bars or candies.
We hand sort our cocoa beans to check for quality and abnormalities. Then we manually grind our beans down for 2 days until they are the perfect consistency. Finally, we form them into tasting tablets and bars.
***This info is provided by Lumineux. Vicinity never predicts or projects performance, and has not reviewed or audited this financial forecast.***
- Financial Forecasts Risks - The financial forecasts provided by us herein are reasonable forecasts by us based upon assumption of stable economic conditions and other various assumptions regarding operations. The validity and accuracy of these assumptions will depend in large part on future events over which Lumineux Chocolate LLC and the key persons will have no control.
- You Might Lose Your Money - Buying a note is not guaranteed or insured to protect from loss. The ability of Lumineux Chocolate LLC to make the payments you expect, and ultimately to give you your money back, depends on a number of factors, including many beyond our control.
- Competition - The market in which we operate is highly competitive and could become increasingly competitive with new entrants in the market.
- Changes in Economic Conditions Could Hurt Lumineux Chocolate LLC - Factors like Covid-19, global or national economic recessions, changes in interest rates, changes in credit markets, and various other crises might negatively impact Lumineux Chocolate LLC.
- Investment Restrictions - There are strict limitations on selling your investment, there is less required offering information, uninsured losses, and no corporate governance.
- Conflict of Interest with Companies and Their Management - In many ways, your interests and the interests of Lumineux Chocolate LLC management will coincide. You must rely on the management's decisions.
- Lumineux Chocolate LLC Might Need More Capital And Future Investors Might Have Superior Rights - If Lumineux Chocolate LLC needs more capital in the future and takes on additional debt or other sources of financing, the new investors might have rights superior to yours.
- Payments and Return Are Unpredictable - Because your payments are based on the revenue of Lumineux Chocolate LLC, and the revenue of Lumineux Chocolate LLC can go up or down (or even disappear altogether) unpredictably, it is impossible to predict how much you will receive and when. And because the payments are unpredictable, so is your ultimate return.
This is a summary of some of the risks associated with this investment. A more comprehensive list of potential risk factors can be downloaded in the Docs section above.
- Lumineux Chocolate LLC has filed a Form C with the SEC which can be found here.
- Vicinity will be compensated upon a successful raise at 8% of the total amount raised.
- There is no cost for investors to invest, though Vicinity will receive a 1% transaction fee on all payments from Lumineux Chocolate LLC to investors that will be withheld from the payment to investors.
Investor Update
We are doing a live Q&A session on Zoom tomorrow, January 20, at noon to answer your questions on our campaign. Join us using the link below. See you there! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87271034660
Benjamin Snyder on January 19 Issuer
Investor Update
Our co-founder, Rebecca, did a Q&A recently with one of our suppliers, Bridge City Coffee, on responsible, ethical sourcing. Check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKB8DbIjuur/.
Benjamin Snyder on January 15 Issuer
Investor Update
We had a very strong finish to 2020! Our Q4 revenue grew 250% over our Q3 revenue, and we finished the quarter with a strong profit.
Benjamin Snyder on January 13 Issuer
Investor Update
We have produced 2,200 pounds of chocolate this year! With your help, we hope to triple that next year by purchasing equipment to handle larger production levels.
Benjamin Snyder on December 17 Issuer
Investor Update
We just finalized our numbers for November, and we ended the month with sales at 43% over our projections! This was due in large part to booking private chocolate tastings all over the US, a category that we will be growing in the months to come.
Benjamin Snyder on December 7 Issuer
Lumineux Chocolate
As Seen In...
Pastry chefs Ben and Rebecca Snyder craft artisanal bean-to-bar chocolate
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