Exploring Life & Business with Michael Orlando

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Orlando.

Hi Michael, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
As a young child, I was always interested in science and nature and in general trying to figure out how things worked or how things were made. As I got older, I realized I enjoyed the creative aspects of art as much as I enjoyed the analytical aspects of science. My career history led me from being a marine biologist SCUBA diving to collect data for researchers to an analytical chemist analyzing unknowns, while my hobbies had me reading philosophy and playing percussion in a band.

After over 10 years of being a career scientist, I was lacking in creative outlets, so I started taking on new hobbies in my spare time–coffee roasting, restoring antique espresso machines, making cheese, baking, and eventually, during the process of building my own coffee roaster, I found chocolate making. I was hooked. The more I got into the chocolate-making hobby, the more distant my interest in unknown samples became. About a year later quit my job and with the little money in my savings became one of the only bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the country.

What started in my kitchen with a pound of cocoa beans, a juicer, and a toaster oven, has now turned into a small-scale artisan chocolate company, complete with a factory stocked with obscure and in most cases, home-built or modified equipment, serving over 400 retail customers nationwide.

Fast forward 12 years and I have now spun off my homemade equipment ideas into its own chocolate-making equipment manufacturing company–Prefix Equipment Manufacturing (founded in 2016) to provide chocolate makers solutions to processing cocoa beans. I have also been working for the last 5 years on starting California’s first cacao and vanilla farm right here in Santa Barbara. Most recently, as of August of 2022, I launched (with two partners) a beverage manufacturing company–Jungle Beverage Manufacturing–spawned by a cacao-based drink that I originally got inspired to make in 2009, before I had officially started Twenty-Four Blackbirds. Finally, when I have the time (which isn’t as often as I like), I spend time in the microbiology laboratory I built into my chocolate factory to delve deeper into the biology and chemistry of cacao fermentation.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No. I started with zero business knowledge. And nearly zero dollars ($8000). Banks wouldn’t loan money to me despite near-perfect credit. I struggled for nearly a decade with generating enough money to keep the business operating. This lead me to making and fixing everything myself, which in the end turned out to be a really good thing (for example, I got my EPA HVAC Technician Certification because I couldn’t afford to pay techs to come fix fridges and chillers that kept breaking). Now when something breaks, I just fix it and rarely need to call in specialists. The result of the struggle is that I now teach myself everything I need to do. It’s very empowering.

What matters most to you?
Integrity and quality. Social responsibility. Collaboration and supporting others’ ideas. Teaching as much of what I know to anyone that wants to know. Deprioritizing profits in favor of all of the above.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.twentyfourblackbirds.com
• Instagram: @twentyfourblackbirds
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Twenty-Four-Blackbirds-Chocolates-340750637791