Nikita Joel only started selling her pistachio chocolate bars three weeks ago at the Auckland night markets. Now, she has hundreds of hungry patrons lining up for her stall, looking for a taste of the gooey, chocolatey, knafeh-filled treat. With an equally busy online business, Joel has thousands of bars selling out online too.
She has even just opened up a second kitchen to cope with demand. Joel is among a rising number of success stories coming out of the local markets scene in Auckland, with many of those business owners going on to establish successful storefronts around the city. RNZ speaks to four business owners who found similarly humble starts in carpark pop-ups, street-side foodtrucks and weekly spots at various markets around Auckland.
Whisked Creations by Niki, selling the 'viral Dubai chocolate bar' Joel learned about the 'viral Dubai chocolate bar' when her friend sent her a video about it on TikTok. Joel is not that keen on eating chocolate herself, and she was not particularly fond of making it at first, but after some encouragement from her friend, she decided to give it a go. "I'm not a sweet tooth, and I know it sounds weird, I'm a baker and I make chocolates for a living.
But when I tasted the pistachio I was like, 'Damn, this is good' - obviously the wrong ingredients, something wasn't right, I needed to fix the texture and what flavours would go nicely and I had to custom blend the chocolate - but it was good." That trial and error period was just four .