Our Story
CoKo Lounge began with a question back in mid-2019, why on earth does chocolate need to be bad for you?
Shortly thereafter we discovered it doesn’t! In fact, cacao, the main component of chocolate, is packed with all sorts of nutrients that nourish and fortify your body. This only enforced our belief that you can eat delicious food without sacrificing nutritional benefits.
While our research answered one of our questions, it left us with another… Why doesn’t everybody know about this?? Thus, we started CoKo Lounge, the first cacao lounge in New Zealand and our way to begin bringing cacao to the masses.
Starting our flagship café in Dunedin in late 2019, we got to work researching and developing new and healthy Cacao Elixer™ that not only tastes fantastic and leaves you feeling great but is also free of refined sugars and unhealthy additives.
Through 2020-2021 we continued to expand, becoming stocked in cafés, delis and airport duty free stores throughout New Zealand as well as becoming a staple of the Otago Farmer’s Market, South Island's favourite market and a great place to educate and share Raw Cacao with everyone.
In September of 2021 we closed the doors to CoKo Lounge Dunedin to focus on our wholesale program and developing an international market in the UK.
With the opportunity to move more freely CoKo Lounge re-located to the seaside town of Oamaru in North Otago.
At the start of 2023 the retail facing aspect of CoKo Lounge took a new form: the CoKo Pod. Our franchised modular food trailer system is perfect in stationary locations while also enabling travel to events.
Cacao Elixers™ are bringing the future of superfood goodness to New Zealand and around the world one sip at a time!