Rabble-Rouser Chocolate & Craft

RABBLE-ROUSER CHOCOLATE & CRAFT

Year Founded: 2003 (as Nutty Steph's)
Years of Cooperative Ownership: Since 2019
Headquarters: Montpelier, VT

Rabble-Rouser originated in 2003 as nut-packed granola company "Nutty Steph's" on Main Street in Montpelier, just down the street from where Rabble-Rouser serves up espresso drinks and serves its handcrafted chocolates today.

Through 15 years and a move to Middlesex, Nutty Steph's founder Jaquelyn Fernandez Rieke led the company's growth into the locally-cherished creator of unique chocolate treats we value today. With numerous beloved products such as Magic Chunks, the Bernie Bar, and CBD dark chocolate, Fernandez Rieke was ready by early 2019 to sell the company to its employees and adopt the Rabble-Rouser name.

“Becoming a co-op is possible for every kind of business, and it is a great benefit to the founder, the workers, and the community," the new team of worker-owners stated in 2019. "We believe it is the business model of the future, the solution to problems created by resource extraction and wealth inequality that plague our contemporary systems of business as usual.”

"As a 100% worker-owned company, we believe that every worker, who is dedicated to their job working, should have the right to claim ownership and share in the profits of their labor," the company states on its website. "Through our shared hard work we hope to create a new culture of business, leisure, diversity, receptivity and humanity."

They, (the owners!) believe the act of making a really nice treat, or serving it, or eating it, or giving it away, constitutes some of the simple medicine of being human.