Zoe's Chocolate winning hearts in the United States

By Katerina Kapernarakou

One always feels a sense of optimism when writing about Greek entrepreneurs attaining success abroad. One such business is Zoe?s Chocolate Co, owned and run by the Tsoukatos siblings Pantelis, 35, Zoe, 33, and 25-year-old Petros. The young entrepreneurs are doing brisk business in the United States, sending their inventive and delicious confections far and wide, including to lofty events such as the White House press corp dinner, the Oscars, the Emmy awards and the G8 Summit. The company has received rave reviews in the American press while its client list includes the likes of Oprah Winfrey and George Stephanopoulos. It has also been awarded twice at the prestigious Good Food Awards, the first time in 2013 for its Sesame Tahini Crunch and this year for Zoe?s Greek Honey Yogurt praline, coated in the company?s signature dark chocolate.

Like so many Greek Americans, the family?s history in the US dates back to the 1900s, when they started out selling homemade chocolates from a hand cart in Baltimore. The business grew with time until the siblings? father, Giorgos, a self-taught, progressive and ambitious visionary, took over at the head of the chocolate-making business.

?After university we all went our separate ways and had no intention of continuing the family business,? Zoe tells Kathimerini. ?Pantelis studied business management and so did Petros later. I worked on issues of public policy and international development, and then at a state consultancy firm in Washington.?

A life in chocolate, though, appears to have been written in the stars.

?We came back home to Pennsylvania in 2007 and decided to join forces to preserve the family?s know-how in chocolate,? says Zoe. ?We believed that we had a unique...