Bean to bar chocolate makers

Holy Cacao Chocolate is a bean to bar chocolate maker in Israel (sold 49th and 50th bar today). -We're young still!

i found a great bean to bar in brooklyn called Mast Brothers.

Brad Churchill here from Choklat ( www.SoChoklat.com ) in Calgary Alberta.We're definitely a bean-to-bar company.Opened in August 2008, and to date have sold over 10,000 hand made bars, and over 35,000 hand dipped/rolled truffles.

So I thought this was an interesting new addition to Tcho and their claims of being a bean to bar chocolatier. I have been hearing rumors about this for the past year and, unfortunately, now it looks like it is official. This is taken directly from their website.We generally roast and convert our cocoa beans to cocoa mass (also called cocoa liquor) at the country of origin then import the cocoa mass to our San Francisco factory, where we continue the process of making our chocolate from scratch. While more difficult for us, roasting at origin has many advantages: its more efficient and it creates more "value add" at origin. And we personally manage each individual roast, with one of our San Francisco obsessives traveling to origin to ensure all of our carefully-researched optimum roast times and temperatures are used.Now it sounds to me like they are saying this is a good thing for their chocolate?! What do you think?So what happens at the other factory is:1) bean sorting and cleaning2) roasting (the most important step in flavor development)3) winnowing4) grinding of cocoa nibs into liquor5) molding liquor into blocksThis means that Tcho:1) Sources beans2) Ships them to someone elses factory.3) grinds sugar4) conches5) Molds barsSince there are a lot of companies who make chocolate from liquor, what do we call them? Sugar grinders?Why has it taken Tcho over a year -- this whole time talking about transparency and saying that they do it all -- to make a public statement such as this?I would love if someone who has actually seen Tcho making chocolate comment on this. Ive heard several people say they have been there but never seen the machines operating and that they have seen boxes of cocoa products from Costa Rica. Will the next thing we find out be that they don't make their own chocolate?I would love for someone to tell me that I have this all wrong. Please give any feed back that you may have.

I've read in other online locations that TCHO in fact DOES supervise the roasts. However don't take my written word here at gospel. It's only a regurgitation of my previous research.Having said that, as a chocolate maker myself, I can completely understand the economics behind their decision to roast and process the liquor in the country of origin. Some of the following reasons are:1. Cheap Cheap Cheap Labour2. Big savings in transportation costs (roasted beans weigh less, and processed liquor is as much as 20-25% less than the roasted beans due to no need to ship the shell.3. Disposal costs for shell are non existent4. Equipment costs are less (no destoning equipment, roasters, winnowers, etc etc)The fact that people have seen boxes from other origins may not mean what it appears. I am currently sitting on 3800lb of cocoa butter from Cargill. It's made and boxed in Brazil and labeled in big red letters as a product of Cargill. I also have Callebaut Cocoa butter in my shop. The boxes are labeled as such too. However beside that I also have over 7,000lb of sacked cocoa beans.Just my two cents for what it's worth.Sometimes things aren't all they appear to be - and that saying goes both ways.Regards

They do say that they supervise the roast. However, they have claimed that they are a bean-to-bar chocolate maker. Can this be accurate if they use other companies to do a large part of the production. Even if they are "supervising"?

I would say so.Not that I'm defending them or anything, but one of the most important processes of making chocolate next to fermentation, is roasting. If they control the roast and processing of the beans they use, I don't really think it makes much difference whether or not they use someone else's equipment.Economically speaking if I had access to the roasting/cracking/winnowing facility to do all of our beans before we shipped them, I'd most likely do the same thing.

Sacred Chocolate is a TRUE BEAN TO BAR MAKER in SAN RAFAEL, CA, USA. I know first hand because I built the machines and the whole factory for that matter.Hearts!Sacred StevePS. Scharffenberger Plant recently closed, so you may want to remove them from the list...

Scharffen Berger's production has been relocated to Illinois by Hershey, who has owned them since 2005 iirc. That doesn't mean that they are no longer bean-to-bar.

Oh, ok! I suppose it is really Hershey who is doing the bean to bar then...?

I think the jury is out until we have more information. For at least the last couple of years, Hershey has outsourced all liquor production in their Hershey, PA facility.Will they get (or are they already/still) back in the bean roasting and grinding business?Does anyone know for sure one way or another?


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

Let me add that I also don't have proof that they are still bean-to-bar. i don't know one way or the other. I was just pointing out that despite the Berkeley facility being closed, Scharffen Berger is still being made, just in Illinois.

i heard that they have duplicated all the processes in Illinois, including a new Barth Tornado roaster (very cool!) and a much bigger melangeur made in Russia etci bought some of their equipment from the Berkeley location - one of the roasters and the bean cleaner. if i ever find the appropriate location, it will be set up again along with an old winnower from a Lindt factory in Northern Italy and some other vintage goodies. Maybe that will move me up from microbatch to small batch:)Celebrating 6 years of microbatch chocolate making ....

Clay,You said on 4/28/08-- "I have created a simple database that will enable us to track these companies more easily. It is located here.PLEASE DO NOT ADD ANY MORE COMPANY NAMES HERE. Please add them in the database. If you have added a company to this list, please consider making an entry in the database for it."Is this database still on TCL? The link you provided doesn't go anywhere, and I can't find anything else to get to the database.

Are these companies b2b?Cote dOrEqual ExchangeRapunzel
updated by @chocofiles: 01/24/15 07:18:20AM

Just for the record, Sacred Chocolate is both a WHOLE BEAN WITH SKIN to Bar company as well as a nib to Bar company. We include the skins of the beans in the chocolate we make for nutritional reasons. The vast majority of the naturally occuring iron in cacao amongst other phyto-nutrients show up in the skins. (just like virtually all the calcium in sesame seeds show up in the skins or husks of the seed). Sometimes we mix processes as well as do single types of processes to achieve both unique flavor an nutritional profiles. We do very "out of the box" chocolate making. We only use raw nibs and raw beans for nutritional reasons. We only stone grind.Steve

Hi Samantha, We are looking into the possibility of making our own winnower. Do you have any tips? What sort of volume can your machine do? How much did you spend on it if you don't mind me asking? Are you happy with it?Any help would be much appreciated since there just doesn't seem to be many resources out there on winnowing machine design or even companys that make them for sale.Steve

Clay,You said on 4/28/08-- "I have created a simple database that will enable us to track these companies more easily. It is located here.PLEASE DO NOT ADD ANY MORE COMPANY NAMES HERE. Please add them in the database. If you have added a company to this list, please consider making an entry in the database for it."Is this database still on TCL? The link you provided doesn't go anywhere, and I can't find anything else to get to the database.

The data are still available but I haven't found a good way to present it and make it both usable and useful. Still working on it.


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

updated by @clay: 09/07/15 04:34:39PM

Does anyone know if any of these companies are bean to bar?-Cote dOr-Equal Exchange-Rapunzel

Cote dOr is owned by Kraft Food and not a bean to bar company. I've never seen bars from Equal Exchange and Rapunzel. A Check at their websites convinced me they are not bean to bar companies.

Being a micro-batch bean to bar company ourselves, i can vouch for the difficulty in doing HIGH QUALITY bean to bar in the USA without cutting corners while bringing to market a retail price point below $4 which is most of these companies. I don't blame them for not being bean to bar. It seems most grinding is being done offshore these days except for some of the hugely automated stateside comanies with massive infrastructure investment.

I have re-posted the online Chocolate Makers database . It is an Add-Only database, which means you can only add an entry, not edit them. This is an international directory, not just US companies.If you have any questions or comments about an entry, please submit them in this forum so that they can be make public. I will make the changes as they are brought to my attention.


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

Masur,Thanks for taking the time to research a little and answer my question.

What a Great resource! Thanks!A correction: DeVries is in Denver CO, not Boulder.Is there any way to print this data to get a hard copy?

Thanks for the update.About the printout. At the moment, no. But I am looking into a way to do that.


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

I've attached a Word document that has a list of Bean to bar makers, and a list of Fondeurs. It's compiled from information I've collected from TCL, from friends, and from the internet. Someone may want to add these companies to the TCL database.Please let me know if there are is any mistaken information in it, so that I can correct it.

Nice effort Olorin but Green & Blacks is not a bean to bar company, nor is Cafe-Tasse and Dolfin according to my sources.

I can confirm that Green and Black's does not do their own manufacturing - it's done in Italy. Dolfin uses couverture from Belcolade.


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

Masur,Thanks for catching that. I made the changes in the text part of the document. They weren't listed in the table, which is the main reference I use.BTW, Mars is listed as a b2b company. I have no idea where I got that info, but it seems hard to believe. Is it right? Is Mars a b2b company?

Clay, I've heard Green and Black's now is made in Poland. It seemes ICAM no longer is a partner.

Must be a cost issue. Italy is a relatively expensive place to do business. Poland doesn't have much of a history with fine chocolate, but everyone is using the same equipment and people can be trained ...


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

Cadbury is? Definitely did not know that. I love Cadbury though, and their commercial is hilarious! http://adwido.com/view_content?vkey=9be0f455ddd4b4cb77ad70596090d38e

I'm not conviced Cadbury is a B2B Company.

Is Aequare, http://www.aequarechocolates.com/ , a bean to bar chocolate maker? They seem to be advertisers on TCL.
updated by @chocofiles: 01/24/15 04:34:43PM

Hi,I wondered whether there was decision made in a later discussion thread that confirmed that bean-to-bar was only accurate if they roasted their own beans?

Hi Gretchen,Not sure if there was any official decision made?We are a bean to bar maker (we even include the husks/skins of the bean) in our chocolate since our beans are so clean they look like almonds. However, we don't roast or cook the beans in any way so that we can retain the very high anti-oxidant value that is naturally occuring in the raw bean. So, we may be an exception to any official rule.Hearts,Sacred Steve

Aequare does not make chocolate from beans, however they are one of the few chocolatiers exporting into the US who makes confections using ingredients sourced almost exclusively in the country of origin.Aequare does work (in an advisory capacity and as a customer) with an independent grower in Ecuador who converts a portion of his crop into chocolate at a factory in Guayaquil. This grower also buys from other local growers and converts a portion of what be buys into chocolate, too.ChocolateLife member Jeffrey Stern is the founder of the company. He was born here in the US and spent years overseas working for USAID before catching the confectionery bug. His wife is Ecuadorian so they moved there several years ago with their young family. Aequare has a workshop and retail operation (Gianduja Chocolatier) in Quito and their product is available on-line and in some stores here in the US.:: Clay


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

Gretchen:I think that there is a consensus that in order to accurately use the term bean-to-bar, the company must start with beans and end with finished chocolate for wholesale/industrial AND/OR retail sale. Wrapped and boxed bars or liquor (liquid or no), the final form is not the significant issue.The question is - do they have to OWN ALL of the equipment or can they contract out some of the operations as long as the work is being done under close supervision?In the end, I really don't care about the ownership of facilities issue as long as they are open and upfront about what they are doing - AND a company employee actually supervise each and every roast, grind, molding, etc. The moment they're no longer personally supervising each and every step of every batch they're contracting with someone else to do then, IMO, they are no longer bean-to-bar.I am more interested in protecting the use of the terms, "origin" and "single-origin." From my perspective it's not a true single-origin bar if there is any added cocoa butter that is not from the same origin. So, the practice of using deodorized cocoa butter of unspecified origin in a recipe means that the chocolate is no longer single-origin, it's "origin chocolate with added cocoa butter of uncertain provenance."Again, I am cool with this as long as people are up-front about it and specify the percentage of added cocoa butter that is not from the origin of the cocoa mass.:: Clay


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

updated by @clay: 09/07/15 12:40:05PM

Steve:If you take a look at my reply to Gretchen, you'll see that whether or not a specific step (e.g., roasting) is done is not at issue here.The point is that you start with beans and end with finished chocolate and that all of the steps that are undertaken to get from Beans to Bars, for each and every batch, are performed or personally (as in in-person) supervised by the company making the claim.:: Clay


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/SCRIPTs/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=163.110 "The cacao shell content is not more than 1.75 percent by weight"As far as I can tell, leaving the husk in means you cannot call it chocolate.Can you please tell me if I am wrong since you are a Raw company? I assume you have to follow FDA guidelines in your labeling?Andrea

Andrea:You are technically correct on this one. It makes no nevermind that they are making raw chocolate - they still need to be in compliance with the FDA standards of identity in order to call their product chocolate.However, the company is so small that the FDA is not likely to take any action unless it becomes a food safety issue, i.e., someone files a complaint because they believe they got food poisoning from eating it.:: Clay


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/