From Gold Prospecting to Bean-to-Bar: The Inspiring Story of Catherine Goulet and Avanaa Chocolat

Every great chocolatier has an origin story. Some grew up in family kitchens, surrounded by the smell of melting couverture. Others trained for years in classical pastry schools before ever tempering their first bar. And then there's Catherine Goulet — a geologist who once searched for gold in the remote wilderness of James Bay, and who now searches for something entirely different: the world's most extraordinary cocoa.

Her chocolate company, Avanaa Chocolat, based in Montreal, is proof that the most compelling stories in the chocolate world rarely follow a straight line. And it's exactly the kind of story you'll discover when you wander through the Village Expo at the Salon du Chocolat.

From Prospecting Gold to Prospecting Cacao

Before chocolate, there was geology. Catherine — known to those close to her as Cath — spent years working as an exploration geologist in the far reaches of James Bay, searching the earth for gold deposits. It was a career built on precision, patience, and fieldwork in some of the most isolated terrain in the country.

Then came a trip that changed everything: a visit to Oaxaca, Mexico, where Catherine watched small, local artisans transform freshly harvested cocoa beans into chocolate, right in front of her. It was a quiet, almost embarrassing realization — here she was, someone who ate chocolate nearly every day, and she had never once thought about where it actually came from, or what it took to make it.

That single moment sparked an entirely new kind of prospecting. If gold could be found underground in James Bay, why couldn't something just as precious be found in cocoa? Catherine left her job in mineral exploration and set off on a different kind of expedition — this time chasing what she would come to call the gold of the Mayas: cacao.

A Year-Long Journey to the Source

What followed was a full year of travel, dedicated entirely to understanding cocoa from the ground up. Catherine visited plantations across Indonesia, Honduras, Colombia, and Peru, learning directly from the farmers who grow and ferment the beans that eventually become chocolate. She wanted to understand everything: the flavor differences between origins, the agricultural realities small producers face, and what truly separates exceptional cocoa from the ordinary.

She came home to Montreal a year later with an unforgettable souvenir: 23 kilograms of Peruvian cocoa beans, smuggled home in the bottom of her backpack. What started as an experiment quickly took over her entire apartment — roasting, conching, and tempering chocolate until every room smelled permanently of cocoa.

Naming a Chocolate Brand After the North

When it came time to name her new venture, Catherine looked not toward the tropics where her cocoa originated, but toward another chapter of her own life: Nunavut, where she had worked for several years before her transition into chocolate. The name Avanaa comes from Inuktitut, meaning from the North — a tribute to the place that shaped her, even as her chocolate itself begins its journey near the equator.

Avanaa officially opened its doors in 2017, in Montreal's Villeray neighbourhood, built on a simple but ambitious mission: to honor the work of cocoa farmers by producing exceptional, bean-to-bar chocolate, sourced directly from small farms and cooperatives across Latin America. Every step — fermentation, roasting, conching, tempering — happens under one roof, giving Catherine full control over quality from bean to finished bar.

Recognition Built One Bar at a Time

Since launching Avanaa, Catherine's story has resonated well beyond the chocolate world. She has been featured on Radio-Canada, in La Presse, Le Devoir, and the Journal de Montreal. In 2022, she appeared on the entrepreneurship television show Dans l'oeil du dragon (the Quebec edition of Dragons' Den), and in 2024, she was named a laureate at the Women in Agritech World Summit, recognized in the organic agri-food category for her work championing sustainable, direct-trade cocoa.

Catherine has also brought Avanaa directly to chocolate lovers as a two-time exhibitor at the Salon du Chocolat Montreal, sharing her bean-to-bar creations with an audience eager to taste a chocolate story this personal.

The Kind of Story Waiting in the Village Expo

Catherine Goulet's journey — from gold prospector to chocolate pioneer — is a powerful reminder of something the Salon du Chocolat has always believed: the most remarkable chocolatiers don't always come from culinary school. Sometimes they come from completely different worlds entirely, carrying with them a curiosity, a discipline, and a willingness to start over that ends up shaping something extraordinary.

This is exactly the spirit you'll find waiting in the Village Expo — the space where independent chocolatiers and small-batch makers, each with their own unconventional path, share their craft directly with visitors.

Come Meet the Next Inspiring Story

Catherine Goulet's path from the gold fields of James Bay to the cocoa farms of Latin America proves that the best chocolate often comes from the most unexpected places — and the most unexpected people. Stories like hers are exactly why the Village Expo remains one of the most rewarding corners of the Salon du Chocolat to explore.