Chocolate Formulation Works
What is atlas?
Atlas is purpose-built formulation software designed specifically to help small and mid-sized chocolate producers:
Manage raw materials, suppliers, cost, and nutritional data
Create, scale, and manage recipes
De-complex the regulatory environment of chocolate
Manage a portfolio of products over time
Generate on-demand technical and specification documentation
Track production batches with full lot traceability from bean to finished product (including true costs and product margins)
The kind of formulation tools big chocolate companies use — customized for small and mid-sized producers.
In the ‘90s, when I started in the R&D lab of one of the world’s largest chocolate makers, there was no standard way to formulate chocolate — everything was done on paper. As a result, I built a system called “The Database,” which revolutionized how the organization worked — and the last time I checked, it’s still in use.
Since then, many formulation tools have been developed, but most are designed for large companies: expensive, complex, and NEVER chocolate-specific. Many are cloud-based, meaning you don’t fully control your own data.
With 30 years of hands-on chocolate experience and a deep understanding of what really works in the lab and on the production floor, I created Atlas to bring enterprise-grade formulation tools to small and mid-sized chocolate producers. Enterprise teams already have their systems — now you do too.
Below are a few screenshots to give a feel for what Atlas can do. The best way to understand it is to download the demo — and I’m happy to walk you through it if you’d like.
Manage raw materials & suppliers
Store all raw material information in one place — the same place you use them in formulations.
Track costing, suppliers, nutritional information, and notes for each ingredient.
Once a raw material is set up, all formulas automatically pull the correct:
Costs
Nutritional profiles
Ingredient-specific data
Attach specification documents, supplier data, or pricing quotes directly to each ingredient for easy reference.
Eliminates scattered spreadsheets and outdated information, keeping your formulation process accurate and efficient.
A powerful cocoa bean module for those starting from raw cocoa beans.
Margins are made or lost in the details. Atlas highlights, tracks, and quantifies the details that matter most.
Import a bulk lot of beans into inventory. Each time you pull some to roast, Atlas:
Generates a sub-lot number for traceability
Records roast parameters and results
Calculates true nib cost based on actual batch yields
Inventory and costing info update in real time:
See your raw bean as well as your roasted, cleaned nib inventory
Choose between weighted average or last batch cost for pricing
Create multiple nib profiles from the same lot (e.g., light, medium, dark roast from one 1,000-lb Belize lot). Atlas tracks each profile separately — including yields, costs, and lot traceability.
Nib profiles link directly to your raw materials list. Cost flows through automatically — no manual updates after processing.
Automatic trended analytics for each nib profile. Easily identify things like:
Moisture issues, winnower inefficiencies or yield shifts over time
Get out of spreadsheets. Get control of your recipes, costs, and specs.
Recipe creation
Professional recipe development and management
All approved raw materials are available when you start a new formula.
Enter ingredient percentages and see pricing and nutritional values update instantly.
Click any ingredient to view key details — pricing, last update date, suppliers, and specs.
Ingredient details open in a quick-view window, so you never leave the formulation screen.
Six key nutritional values are shown by default for a clean, readable view.
Images show the same formula with the default nutritional view and with the expanded full nutritional view
Click “Show Detailed Nutrition” to expand the panel and view the full nutrition profile.
Click again to collapse back to the summary view.
Fine tune by choosing your refining method
Choose between 4 of the most common refining methods - roll refining, melange, ball mall, or universal mill. Each selection will provide a set of guidelines, tools, or formulation assessment specific to that type of equipment.
Roll refiners: focus on mixing and refining fat levels to optimize production.
Melange: predicts run time based on ingredients, formulation parameters, and target particle size. The system learns from your first 3–5 batches to understand your raw materials and equipment.
Ball mill: at a glance guidance and feedback on expected process efficiency and order of addition guidelines.
Universal mill: guidance on critical success factors, temperatures, maintenance and processing.
Better process management
Helps you design formulations and manage runs more effectively.
Supports informed decision-making for consistent results.
Support for fillings and non-chocolate recipes:
Use the formulation page to manage non-chocolate recipes like ganaches, ice creams, beverages, truffles, or filled bars.
Example: a standard 1:1 heavy cream ganache can be entered just like any other raw material.
Workflow:
Export full nutritional information from your ganache and chocolate.
Add them as raw materials with nutrition data.
Create your finished product recipe using the chocolate and the ganache from the ingredient picker. Costing, nutritional information, specification generation are now ready for your finished product.
Pricing alerts: Atlas flags ingredients with missing pricing in red so you can quickly see incomplete data.
Refining methods can be ignored for non-chocolate recipes.
Provides a one-stop solution for chocolate and non-chocolate components, similar to enterprise tools used by large manufacturers.
Powerful tools for the rest of us
Regulatory engine
One of the most powerful features in Atlas - the regulatory engine - links directly to the Code of Federal Regulations to determine if your formula is compliant with the US Standard of Identity for chocolate (SOI). If desired, additional standards such as Codex, can be added in the future.
Determines in real time as you build your formula if what you have is SOI compliant or not. Anything highlighted in green indicates you’re compliant with that aspect of the CFR. Anything red means you’re not. In this instance, it’s telling us that our product is legally compliant to be called either a Sweet Chocolate or a Semisweet chocolate.
A dynamic insights section at the bottom of the sidebar will provide additional feedback, depending on the details of your formula.
It will also assess your product for sugar free or no sugar added status, and provide substantiating details or identify where formulation modifications are necessary to meet sugar free or NSA requirements. Above we see a SOI compliant chocolate on the left, and on the right are two images showing how Atlas identified the formula as SF on the formulation page, and the type of dynamic information it generates on the regulatory bump out.
Built by a chocolate professional. Made for people who actually make chocolate.
Formulation (recipe) library
All formulas stored locally — your data stays on your machine; no data harvesting, full control over your information.
Automatic project organization — every new formula gets a project number.
Nested project history — duplicating a formula nests it within the project, preserving all versions and history.
Expandable views — click the “+” to expand nested projects and view all versions in a project.
Flexible sorting — sort formulas by name, project number (default), or date.
Track formula evolution — monitor changes due to raw material substitutions or process adjustments, with full context on results and impact over time.
Spend less time managing data. More time making great chocolate.
on demand technical documents
Click of a button creation of NLEA style nutritional information per 100g. Page header (company info) is configurable to display your company’s information - not mine.
Click of a button specification generation. User configurable parameters so you get to decide what is important for your specs. You don’t like the pre-populated physiochemical tests (or methods)? You want different micro tests/parameters, packaging material, Kosher certification, storage or shelf life info? It’s all customizable by you. Add new specification requirements, or choose to remove some or all of them.
Serious chocolate formulation without enterprise software headaches.
Production management
Promote your recipes from development status to production status.
Atlas will auto assign a Julian lot code to your production (that is editable if you need to). It will auto increment your lot assignments if multiple batches are being produced and require unique lot #’s.
Record your ingredient supplier and lot #’s to ensure traceability back to your specific batches.
When a batch is completed, Atlas captures your actual production amounts (to quality in process losses) and any relevant testing parameters. This information then feeds a production analytics assessment to be sure you understand your yields and if your specifications are being met or not.
Finished goods manager
At this point - you’ve built and tested your recipe - its delicious, it meets all the regulatory requirements, it runs in your production equipment - you’re good to go - but you’re probably not selling melangeurs or ball mills full of chocolate - you’re selling retail packaged products. The finished goods manager builds your retail product (packaging + your chocolate) - and helps you understand your cost structure over various routes to market. If you have a direct to consumer model (ie no distributors or retailers) - your margin structure looks different than if you DO have distributors or retailers. Atlas breaks down all your costs - your ingredients, packaging, overhead, waste, your desired margin, the margin impact of your retailers and distributors if you do have them - and lets you model different price points to be sure you remain financially sustainable.
You can also use it to do business model scenario testing - lets say you’ve got a product that a retailer wants, but has mandated a price and their margin requirements - you can easily use Atlas to determine if this business is worth pursuing or not.
The overview of ALL your finished goods resides in your finished goods library - it allows you to see all your currently active products (or archive those that are no longer active) - and see the margin details by product and by your route to market. This helps to quickly identify if you’ve got specific products or partners that may not be financially sustainable.
Each finished good also has the ability to generate an instant nutritional facts panel - currently using FDA and Food Canada requirements and formats. Multiple formats are generated and you can select the one that is most suitable for your packaging.
Enterprise-grade capability without surrendering control of your IP or data.
The best way to understand it is to try it. Upon launch, it will go into a demo mode that will give full functionality for 15 days, but limit you to 10 raw materials, and 3 finished formulas. Try it out.
How do the features and pricing of Atlas compare to other options on the market?
Compare features to determine what version is best for you.
“Chocolate is the answer - who cares what the question is.”
Necessity is the mother of Invention
The chocolate business can be difficult - - especially if you’re not prepared. Having the proper systems in place allows for scalability - - It makes you more efficient. Systems aren’t the sexy, fun part of chocolate - I get it - but having built some of the most thorough chocolate supply systems on the planet - it’s very apparent to me the power that a good system brings. In an increasingly complex world often driven by regulations and short timelines - a good system is crucial for your success. Large companies have sophisticated tools to help manage this - but they’re expensive and cumbersome, and not the right tool for small to mid sized producers. So I built one. The one I would have wanted to use when I was getting started.
I named it Atlas after the mythical Greek titan who supported a great weight on his shoulders. A good system does just that - it supports your business. The logo is a cocoa tree surrounded in a ring that acknowledges the Meso-American origins of cacao, and if you look closely enough at the logo - you’ll see it’s inlaid with gold - which further acknowledges the observation made by Hernán Cortés in the early 1500’s that the Aztecs valued the cocoa beans so greatly that it appeared to him they used them as currency. I love the rich history of cocoa, and it felt fitting to give a tip of the hat to the past as tools of the future were being built.