Vegan Business Talk

In this episode I interview Pana Barbounis of Pana Chocolate in Melbourne, Australia. Four years ago when he launched the raw, vegan, organic brand, he filled the first few orders himself. He wrapped them and delivered them on the back of his motorbike. Now the business takes over $5 million a year and products are sold in over 3,000 stockists in 24 countries. The company employs over 80 staff and recently opened a London office to service the European market. Pana plans to expand into the US later this year, with a vision to be the world’s number one raw chocolate company by 2017. In August 2013 the company opened one of the first raw, standalone dessert stores in the world that wasn’t attached to a café and in April this year it achieved another major coup: Knocking multinational chocolate brand Cadbury off the shelves at Etihad sports stadium in Melbourne. Pana has managed to achieve all this while still owning 100 per cent of his company. In this interview he talks about: •    Why he deliberately a