Oh, patents! Oh, CocoTerra!

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Ever dream of making your own artisan bean-to-bar chocolate, in the comfort of your own home?  Wake-up! The CocoTerra countertop chocolate-making factory will be available sometime in 2021.

The CocoTerra countertop, chocolate-making, factory will enable you to make your very own nibs-to-spaceship-looking-bar, using nibs that include a certificate of origin, and a circular mold. Nibs are dried, fermented and cracked cacao beans, obtained after harvesting cacao pods from the cacao tree, and removal of the seeds, called cacao beans, from the pods. As for the 360-degree mold, it will make your artisan chocolate even more unique. The CocoTerra process is shown in the YouTube video below.

CocoTerra nibs from different origins, such as Western Ghana, the Dominican Republic and Madagascar, will be available in retail, or to order via the app. Each package of nibs will display a QR Code, pointing to a CocoTerra recipe, which the CocoTerra machine will execute, once connected via Bluetooth® to a phone, tablet or computer. The CocoTerra chocolate-making facotry will execute the recipe directly as stored via the CocoTera app, or with various possible degrees of coached customization. This way the CocoTerra chocolate-making factory might appeal to both novice, and professional artisans. 

Once an existing recipe is selected or customized, or a new recipe is designed, and launched, the machine will go through all the manufacturing processes of chocolate making, right on your countertop. In other words, the machine will do all the grinding, refining, conching, tempering and molding, in approximately 2 hours, depending on the recipe. All the user does, after selecting, customizing or creating a recipe, is add the four main ingredients (nibs, cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder) for making chocolate, plus any additional spices or optional ingredients such as nuts or dried fruit, in the proportions specified in the recipe, and when the recipe indicates. Presto pronto, and voilà! CocoTerra will then deliver a circular chocolate bar, ready to enjoy, whether it is cinnamon dark chocolate or simple white chocolate. In sum, CocoTerra will deliver both a delight for taste buds and a new experience under lockdown.

The app driving the CocoTerra countertop chocolate-making factory is patented in the US patent application US20200288741A1, titled Interface and application for designing a chocolate-making experience. The abstract of the invention is included below, together with  Figures 2 and 4, extracted from the patent, respectively showing interactive graphical interfaces for managing recipe options and for creating a new custom recipe.

In particular, Figure 2 shows the interactive graphical interface 200 for a machine 115, the CocoTerra, which is “turned off” or “unconnected to your network”. The interface 200 also displays a list of two chocolate-making recipes “Simple white” and “Cinnamon dark chocolate 50”, out of eight stored recipes. A menu bar at the bottom of the interface 200 shows the ecommerce function  SHOP, enabling users to buy (or sell) ingredients, such as cacao butter, cacao nibs of various origins, milk powder, decorations, inclusions and flavorings (e.g.; ground nuts, spices, dried fruits, oils and concentrates). In another embodiment of the invention, the ecommerce function SHOP automatically fills a cart with all the ingredients needed for a particular recipe. The menu bar at the bottom of the interface 200 also includes an elearning function EXPLORE, allowing users to access learning modules about chocolate, such as: The cacao farms of Guinea, The origins of chocolate or The health benefits of chocolate. The MACHINE function at the bottom of the interface 200 enables users to set some of the machine parameters, such as UPDATES on machine status and the chocolate-making process, or PREFERENCES, such as the language of the interface  or measurement units (e.g.; oz or gr) for the recipes. Finally, the RECIPES function provides access to stored recipes, and/or databases of recipes for making chocolate, for this particular embodiment of the invention. Indeed, as recited, the scope of the invention interface is unlimited to the CocoTerra chocolate making machine. Another type of machine could be driven, in a similar way, by an interface like the one shown, using different recipes, ingredients and processes, as well as different ecommerce, elearning and  machine setting functions.

Figure 4 shows an exemplary interactive graphical interface 400 for creating a custom or guided recipe.The four main ingredients of chocolate are listed, with an ADD INGREDIENT function. Each of the ingredients might be edited for quantity, or the user might instead select the GUIDE ME function at the bottom of the interface. The GUIDE ME function then coaches the user through the process of customizing a recipe. Coaching includes, for example, determining whether the recipe is for making milk, dark or white chocolate, and for each chocolate category: “How creamy? How sweet? How milky?” the desired, circular, chocolate bar output.

Provided herein are exemplary embodiments including a computing device comprising a processor, a memory and a display, the computing device being configured to dynamically display a specific, structured interactive graphical user interface paired with a prescribed functionality directly related to the interactive graphical user interface's structure, the specific structured interactive graphical user interface configured to receive input information including an entry of a desired type of food to be prepared, and a desired characteristic of the food, the computing device processor automatically generating a food preparation parameter based on the received input information, and the computing device processor automatically generating a custom recipe for preparation of the food. Additionally, the specific structured interactive graphical user interface may be configured to receive an entry to modify the food preparation parameter or the custom recipe. [Abstract US20200288741A1] 

Reference

CocoTerra (company website) https://www.cocoterra.com/