I visited Chocberry Backyard in Seseh where my Grab driver and I were going back and forth looking for the signage. Then we found this tiny path filled with trees, grass, and plants. It looked like the entrance to an Alice in Wonderland world, where if you get in, you'll never be able to get back out.
I walked in and heard a joyful voice: "You're here!" A beautiful woman in a satin dress suddenly gets summoned out from between the bushes, wearing gloves, a big smile on her face and rosy cheeks, looked like she had just been tending her garden.
The space was beautiful and lush. Khalda, the name of the woman in the satin dress, gave me a tour of her garden. Plants everywhere, small little nooks with tables and chairs where you can sit and enjoy her farm-to-table strawberries and chocolate. The location sits next to a creek, so you can hear the soothing sound of water while you're there.
Khalda offered me her strawberry and chocolate with pistachio crunch and Dubai chewy bomb toppings. My eyes nearly popped when I asked how old she was and she said 26, about to open her fourth branch of Chocberry, and the business hadn't even been a year yet. "We went from 2 people to almost 20 people working for us now," she said.
From Gojek PR to Marketing Manager at Nude, Where She Met Her Mentor Christian
Khalda's path to entrepreneurship wasn't a straight line. "Growing up I always knew that I wanted to make my own business, but it takes a process mentally," she says. "You graduate from uni and you want to work in a prestigious company." For Khalda, that meant working at Gojek in PR before eventually moving to Bali, where she would grow into the role that quietly shaped everything that came after, marketing manager at Nude.
"Before that I also did my marketing internship at Nude when I was still in college in 2020, six years ago," she recalls. It was there that she found a mentor in Christian, Nude's owner.
"Christian is someone I really look up to. I learned about leadership, marketing, creativity from him, he's someone I adore so much. One of the reasons I started this business is also because of him, and he really supports me. I'm really grateful for him."
That foundation, years of learning branding, creativity, and leadership from someone she admired, would become the backbone of how she eventually built Chocberry.
A 2024 Trip to Japan Where Her Strawberries and Chocolate Obsession Changed Everything
The spark came in 2024, in Japan.
"I love strawberries and chocolate from a long time ago. I was looking for strawberries and chocolate there and in two weeks I ate like five or six because I really love it. When I saw it, my marketing and branding brain kicked in, I think I know how to improve this, I think I know how to make strawberries and chocolate cool again."
What made this idea different from any other passing thought was the certainty behind it. "Sometimes when you're creating a business and you have another job, you lose motivation and think, let's just leave it. But with strawberries and chocolate I was really sure."
She came back, spent five months in preparation, designing the branding, the cart, the details, and on the 8th of May 2025, Chocberry opened at Echo Beach.
Chocberry Is About Romance and Experience, Not Just a Product
Ask Khalda what Chocberry really is and she doesn't talk about the product first.
"I think Chocberry at its core is about love and romance, expressing love and romance. I'm myself a hopeless romantic, so I want to express it more."
For her, romance doesn't have to be grand. "Sometimes people think that romance needs to be something big, like you get flowers from your partner or something really big, but I think romance is not always like that. It can be simple things, like you see these flowers and you really like it, or roses you saw from nothing and now they're blooming, it makes you feel something. I think that simple thing can be romantic as well."
That philosophy extends to the product itself. "We sell strawberries and chocolate and we really take pride in the quality, from our farm, how we sort and process the strawberries, and the chocolate. We want the quality to be as perfect as possible. But I think Chocberry itself, for me, it's all about experience."
Building Her Own Strawberry Farms, Paired with Belgian Chocolate
One of Khalda's quiet missions with Chocberry is breaking a stigma, the one around local Indonesian strawberries. "Some people come to Chocberry and say, 'Oh, are the strawberries imported?' But they're not. They're local."
Getting to that quality, however, required building it from the ground up. So Khalda made her own farm, collaborating with local farmers.
"Strawberry farms in Indonesia just want to sell strawberries. To maintain the highest quality possible takes a lot of work, and they're pretty conventional and don't want to go there, and also because the stigma around local strawberries is so bad, they think, why would I bother? There'll be no market anyway."
Her analogy for it is simple and telling: "It's like a stray cat, it can be skinny, but when you really take care of it, know what it needs, maximize the soil and fertilizers, that's when it becomes good."
For the chocolate, after extensive R&D, the answer was clear. "The best one is still Belgian chocolate. It's expensive, but we want quality." And to those who question the price point: "If you know the process behind it, Belgian chocolate is not cheap, and taking care of a good farm is a lot of work. Simple ingredients actually take the most work, because if you have poor quality, people can tell."
How the First Customer's TikTok Post Turned Into Bali's Most Talked-About Concept
The early days at Echo Beach were quiet, deliberately so. "We didn't really push marketing because I wanted to check the foot traffic organically. The weather wasn't great, there were days we sold nothing because of rain. I remember packing the bag from the kitchen, taking all the strawberries, and offering samples to people myself."
Then came the moment that changed everything.
"One day I asked a customer where she heard about us and she said, 'I saw it on TikTok.' I'd never really posted on TikTok as a business. I looked it up and it turned out our very first customer had posted about us and got around 10k views."
That's when Khalda made her move. "I thought, what if I just post on my personal TikTok, not as a business owner but as Khalda, and see how it goes. And boom, it went viral." Coverage from Bali community pages followed.
"It's a unique concept in Bali. Strawberries and chocolate aren't groundbreaking, but in Bali it's really unique, especially at the beach, watching the sunset. You're not just selling chocolate and strawberries, you're selling an experience."
The Mentor, the Team, the Family, and the Inner Work Behind Four Branches in Under a Year
Four branches in under a year doesn't happen alone, and Khalda is the first to acknowledge that. The throughline of her story is the people who showed up, in different forms, at different times.
Christian from Nude remains one of the most significant. The years spent learning under him weren't just a job, they were preparation.
"I learned about leadership, marketing, creativity from him. One of the reasons I started this business is also because of him, and he really supports me."
Her ex-partner contributed too, practically and tangibly. "My ex-partner helped me as well. The idea of the Bakso cart came from him." The team she's built has grown from two people to almost 20.
And then there was the very first customer, a stranger who felt something, pulled out her phone, and posted. No ask, no coordination. Just someone who wanted to share it. That post, with its 10k views, was the first domino.
But perhaps the most consistent support system Khalda names is the one she's built within herself.
"Business is really demanding, you're taking care of people, solving problems, making decisions constantly. If I'm not centered, if I'm messy on the inside and just reactively solving problems, I don't feel content with that. So I have to find time to meditate, to make sure I'm present."
She's honest about the doubts too. "The limiting belief that Chocberry brought up for me was: can I really do this? Can I make this sustainable? Can I really take care of this financially? I watch a lot of videos, listen to a lot of podcasts, try to do the inner work and keep my self-belief up."
"Your team, your parents, your friends support you, but ultimately you're leading it yourself. Being an entrepreneur can be pretty lonely, you're kind of in it alone, like a single mom. But it's also exciting because I feel like I'm building a business, but it's also building me as a person."
Chocberry's 4th Branch Is Opening, with Atelier and Workshops to Follow
On April 15th 2026, Chocberry opened its fourth location in Sanur. And that's just the beginning of what Khalda is building.
"I see Chocberry as having endless possibilities with playing with that experience. I want it to give a romantic and fun feeling, joy. I want people to come, leave, and feel something."
Chocberry Atelier is next, a gifting arm of the business. "Bouquets and boxes of chocolate-dipped strawberries that people can order and give to their loved ones. Or to themselves." After that, workshops. "A space for chocolate strawberry workshops. There are a lot of things I want to explore."
For Khalda, success has always had a clear definition.
"The fulfilling side is seeing the guests happy, the team happy, and feeling content with what I've built. That's success for me. To see customers happy, coming back, it warms my heart."
She sells strawberries and chocolate. But really, she's selling the feeling that the small, simple things, when done with enough care, can make you feel something. And apparently, a lot of people agree.
