Dr. Melissa Berry merges art and science in craft, promotes healthier lifestyle for customers

Dr. Melissa Berry never intended to make chocolate into a career after graduating from the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM), but she had always been passionate about advocating for natural medicine.  

After working in several clinical settings, Berry launched Missionary Chocolates, her small Portland business creating handcrafted vegan and allergen-free chocolates.  

“I resisted a lot, actually, accepting that this was going to be my real job,” she said. “I always sort of looked at it as just a side gig.” 

It felt like the opposite of doing clinical work, which she said she initially set out to do after receiving her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from NUNM in 2008.  

While working as a single mother at a clinic in Lake Oswego, Berry had started making vegan and allergen-free chocolates at home to earn extra money.  

The recipe started as a Christmas gift to her mother, who craved sweets but struggled with various autoimmune issues.  

When her niche truffle chocolates proved both healthy and delicious, Berry decided to vend her creations at local farmer’s markets across Portland. 

“Being at the market, being outside, and being able to talk to people felt like, ‘Wow, I’m fired up about this,” she said. “I finally got a little bit of that glimmer back of why I wanted to be a doctor to talk to people about change and lifestyle and how much it mattered what they put in their mouths.” 

After her chocolate won first place in the Portland Northwest Chocolate Festival in 2008, Berry said she knew she was onto something.  

Berry originally named the business Rx Missionary Chocolates in honor of her father and grandparents who were all missionary doctors. Nearly a decade later, Missionary Chocolates—as it was later known—began to pay off.  

Her small business employed a team of over a dozen employees and packaged hundreds of custom chocolates for individuals and businesses.

“It’s an interesting segue to having a food business,” Berry said, “people trust me because I’m a doctor.”  Clientele with celiac disease could visit the store and sample an array of gluten-free products knowing everything she provided was safe to eat. 

“It’s such a sacred trust and honor to be someone people can trust to make them something that isn’t going to make them sick,” she said. 

Through the vehicle of chocolate, Berry found a platform to spread her knowledge as a naturopathic doctor. She also had a captive audience of customers who were already interested in healthy alternatives. 

“I teach more people how to do hydrotherapy, and about warming socks and onion poultices,” she said, “I’m constantly treating people, but in a way they’re really open to.”  

Customers often returned to the store, surprised that a simple tea could reduce inflammation. This excited Berry, who would simply tell them, “yeah, that’s natural medicine.” 

At her Missionary Chocolates storefront in Northeast Portland, Berry could focus on reaching her community at the grassroots level, collaborating with local makers to feature in-store products and donating to organizations she supported.  

Making chocolate also allowed her to have creative license over her work, she said, putting the technical aspects of her training to use. These were things she learned through natural medicine, she said, such as making infusions in herbal medicine and pairing flavors in line with an understanding of biochemistry. 

When one of her recipes featured wasabi, samples were picked up by the Portland Development Commission to debut for colleagues on a trip to Japan.  

Recently, Missionary Chocolates applied for a vendor space within the newly designed terminal wing at the Portland International Airport (PDX). Berry’s business was one of a few chosen to debut a temporary pop-up at PDX, which sought to spotlight women and minority-owned local businesses, beginning in Fall of 2024.  

While Berry said owning and operating a small business had been more challenging than she ever could have anticipated, the risk had paid off in purpose.  

“I meet people all the time and I’m just like, if you have this entrepreneurial bug, you just cannot turn it off,” she said. “Whether I’m at the airport, whether I’m in a store, or I’ll be at a restaurant—I love flavors and chocolate is a blank canvas.” 

With Missionary Chocolates, she could freely deliver wellness tips on her own time, in a setting that felt less formal than a medical office.  

“As long as I get to talk about what’s important to me and hopefully proffer our profession, that’s the goal,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to do—chocolate is just a conduit for me.”  

Written by Ashley Villarreal, Marketing Content Specialist