Baton Rouge native and Louisiana State University alumna Maram Khalaf teaches chemistry at Woodlawn High School, but she also runs a handcrafted artisan chocolate business, Chocolate Bijoux, with her mother, Aliaa Khalaf.
She runs the financial side of the businesses, while her mom is in charge of production.
Chocolate Bijoux specializes in jewel-like chocolates made with premium ingredients that can be ordered with specific prints and flavors for special events. Their 17 fillings are unique, including honeycomb crunch, pistachio mallow and cafe latte. The name “Chocolate Bijoux” stems from a professor’s comment that the chocolate looked like jewels, or “bijoux” in French. The Khalafs wanted to honor the French culture of Louisiana with the name.
How did you get into the chocolaterie business?
My mom loves chocolate, like, a lot. She loves what we would consider foreign chocolate, like from Europe. She doesn’t like American chocolate.
We would travel internationally a lot because we have family overseas, and she would always take a suitcase with her, like a handbag or carry on, and fill it up with chocolate for a stash. When Covid hit, she ran out of her stash because we couldn’t travel. The chocolates in stores around here weren’t satisfying that sweet tooth.
We basically started to learn online how to do it. When Covid was over and we could go back to school, I was a student at LSU. We had an abundance of chocolate at home, so I would always take them with me to my meetings and conferences. I was studying biology and education and doing marine biology for undergrad research, while also having an Arabic minor. I was getting to meet a lot of people. My professors would tell me that I should start a business with this.
I didn’t think I could do that because I literally had no idea how to run a business. But I started doing Instagram stuff and posting what we do. Then I started making orders for friends and family, and it started growing by word of mouth, and it just took off.
How does your scientific background factor into your chocolate making?
The reason why I was able to manage that part was because I was still in school when I started the business. Everything that I was doing in my chemistry labs and my biology labs helped. I was taking a bunch of food science courses. I did most of my electives where it would relate to the business.
Since I was able to do that, I had access to professors that were in food science that actually did this for a living.
I took our fillings to a lab, and I actually ran experiments on them. I wanted to make sure that the shelf life was good. I wanted to see if there was crystallization. I wanted to see how humidity affected them. I ran multiple experiments.
Can you tell me about the creative process?
My mom was always a big fan of artsy stuff, and so was I. I like to be real creative with what I do.
I didn’t want us to be stuck to one design. Most boxes of chocolate look the same. That was something that I didn’t want to stick with. I always want us to have room to grow. So, something that we decided to do was color code the chocolates, and that allows us to play with the molds, different designs — marble, polka dot or ombre — and the way it looks. As long as the main color was the same, that was the thing that we decided to do.
I always was a fan of cool looking stuff and abstract art, and so I thought it was a perfect way to merge those things together.
What’s your favorite thing to create?
One thing that I love doing is the displays for events because it’s different every time.
People love doing the party favors like a two-piece chocolate box. But also, a display means it’s more three dimensional. We can make it like a dome or a flower or a bouquet.
I just enjoy doing that because it brings out that engineering architect side. I don’t really get to use that all the time in my daily life, so that’s my favorite. Playing with the colors and the shapes is also really fun. My mom handles more of what’s inside. So we fit each other well.
All of our ingredients are fresh, top tier and made in house.
How has this business connected you and your mom to the community?
The fact that I was in so many different colleges or departments within LSU helped. If I were not at LSU, this would not be successful at all.
They opened up so many doors for Bijoux. The Manship School of Mass Communication reached out to the LSU Foundation, and they all wanted these products.
What does your family think about your success?
I think my family overseas are pretty proud. I went and visited them this summer, and that’s all they talked about.
My parents did not grow up here, but I was born here. My brothers were born here. I like showing diversity within the community. For example, being in different magazines or something like that, we don’t really see that very often.