Based in the innovative San Francisco Bay Area, Oodaalolly is a rapidly growing AAPI-owned confections brand that makes award-winning chocolate exclusively using Philippine-sourced cacao.

Oodaalolly founder Hernan Lauber was born in a rural region of the Western Visayas and then raised in Switzerland and the US, where he learned the finer points of Swiss chocolate making from his father, a classically trained pastry chef, baker, and chocolatier. In 2017 after a decade of living in Zurich and Sydney, Hernan noticed that the craft chocolate using Philippine cacao didn’t have the smooth, creamy, and subtle textures of the Swiss chocolate he prized since youth. So, he combined his two cultures to form Oodaalolly—sourcing cacao from the Philippines to make chocolate the Swiss way. Oodaalolly focuses on direct trade with co-op farmers specializing in rare cacao varietals. Those beans are combined with time honored family recipes and Swiss techniques to make chocolate customers buy again and again. In 2019, fellow NEU alumnae, 3D-designer, and long-time friend, Jeremy Burnich, found himself bit by the chocolate bug after helping out at a well-regarded Filipino Night Market in SOMA, San Francisco. Now a graduate of Ecole Chocolate and an accelerated apprenticeship with Albert Lauber, he rapidly learned and continues to appreciate all things chocolate.