Ballston Spa’s Confluence Chocolate launches Survivor bar

Confluence Chocolate, a bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Ballston Spa, is launching a special-edition bar for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with a portion of sales going to local breast cancer support groups including To Life! The Survivor bar goes on sale for October, and owner Chris Tomchik will introduce it at a pop-up at Nourish on Milton Avenue on Friday, Oct. 2, from 5 to 8 p.m., according to the company’s website.

The business is less than a year old. Tomchik, a former community and hospital pharmacist, made his first sales on Thanksgiving Day 2025, the Saratoga Business Journal reported in its September issue.

What bean-to-bar means

Many chocolate shops melt down chocolate that someone else made. A bean-to-bar maker starts with raw cocoa beans. Tomchik explained the difference to Saratoga Living in August: a chocolatier makes confections out of finished chocolate, while a chocolate maker has to make the chocolate itself. At his Ballston Spa factory the beans go through a series of machines, according to the magazine.

1. A roasting oven, where Tomchik uses a light roast to keep the flavor of each region and growing season.
2. A winnower, which cracks the beans and separates the husks from the nibs inside.
3. A pre-grinder that turns the nibs into a paste, then a ball mill that grinds the paste finer.
4. A conche, which stirs, heats and aerates the chocolate.
5. A tempering machine, which melts, cools and reheats the chocolate so the finished bar snaps cleanly.

The regular bars use cocoa beans, organic cane sugar and cocoa butter, plus less than 1 percent sunflower oil, according to Saratoga Living. New York requires chocolate makers to work from a licensed commercial space, which ended Tomchik’s first plan of making a few bars at home for farmers markets. He found a space in Ballston Spa and had equipment shipped there in January 2025, about 10 months before those first Thanksgiving sales.

Single-origin bars let a maker show off what beans from different places taste like. Confluence’s current bars, according to its online shop, include these.

• Origin, the debut dark bar, $12, made with Tsiriari beans from Peru in its first batches and Finca beans from Belize in the current batch.
• Journey, $12, the same recipe with Three Mountains beans from Ghana and now Camino Verde beans from Ecuador.
• Explorer, $10, a sweet chocolate version of Journey that gets a milder, milk chocolate style taste without using any dairy.
• A 70 percent dark bar from the Anamalai Estate in the foothills of India’s Western Ghats, $10, which the company says tastes of guava, fudge, peanut and caramel.

Bars weigh 2.1 ounces. The website offers $10 shipping or local pickup.

Built around allergies

Tomchik keeps all nine major food allergens out of his kitchen: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame. The Business Journal reported that the rule started at home, because his son has celiac disease. The company’s allergen page is careful about what that does and does not mean. The bars are not tested, so Confluence does not call them allergen-free, coconut is used in some products and on the equipment, and cocoa and tree nuts often grow in the same regions, so cross-contact during shipping can happen. People with severe allergies are told to check with a doctor.

He also pays attention to where the beans come from. Confluence buys through a bean broker who visits farms each year, some of them certified organic, and Tomchik keeps in direct contact with at least one grower, according to the Business Journal.

From pharmacist to chocolate maker

Tomchik’s own account on the company site describes years of food-science hobbies, including beer, wine and cheese, before he found videos about bean-to-bar chocolate. His first batch was cacao and a mortar and pestle. A home melanger came next, then batches for friends and family, then the decision to leave pharmacy. “I either go all in or I don’t,” he told the Business Journal. He runs production mostly on his own and hires out design and printing.

He learned much of the craft from the Craft Chocolate TV channel on YouTube, Saratoga Living reported, and the business moved faster than he expected. “I never thought I’d be leaving my full-time job after just seven months,” he told the magazine. In early August, Confluence held a ribbon-cutting with the Ballston Spa Business and Professional Association, and more businesses have asked to carry the bars since.

The Survivor bar and October events

The Survivor bar starts with a 75 percent dark chocolate made from lightly roasted beans. Freeze-dried cranberry dust and pomegranate arils are sprinkled on by hand right after the bars are molded, according to the company. Part of the proceeds goes to local nonprofits that support people with breast cancer, among them To Life!, the Capital Region group Mara Ginsberg founded in October 1998 after her own diagnosis.

The company’s October schedule, as posted on its events page, is below.

• Friday, Oct. 2, 5 to 8 p.m.: Survivor bar launch pop-up at Nourish Designs, 87 Milton Avenue, Ballston Spa.
• Saturday, Oct. 3, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.: the last scheduled date at the Ballston Spa Farmers Market in Wiswall Park on Front Street.
• Sunday, Oct. 4, 8 a.m. check-in: To Life!’s I Pink I Can! 5K race and walk at Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady.

Where to buy it

Besides the website and markets, Confluence bars are sold at a handful of local shops and restaurants, according to the company. In Ballston Spa they are at Nourish, Iron Roost and the Willow-Marsh Farm Store. In Malta, look for them at Active Ingredient Brewing Company. In Saratoga Springs, Putnam Market and PDT Maison carry them. Tomchik told the Business Journal he is working on a bourbon-infused chocolate with a local distillery and planned ticketed tastings this fall with area wineries, breweries and distilleries. Confluence Chocolate is now in our directory.

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