What the Chocolate Industry Needs is A $100 Bar of Chocolate
Posted in: Opinion
i have followed some of this discussion and you all make valid points on this discussion. I can talk only from an Australian point of view. My family has been in wine starting with vineyards in the Barossa Valley around 1830, though i grewup in wine and worked in the industry for many years my main work is speciality tea and chocolate .
Wine got to where it is by evolving over hundreds of years by making the public more knowledgeable about wine. Every major media has columns devoted to this topic every week. Craft beer is following the same path.
The type of discussion you are having is happening in speciality tea as well, many of Clay's opening comments and thoughts have appeared in speciality teas pages.
Cafes are my industry and i've watched the rise and rise of coffee, again in Australia its evolved naturally, not by some grand master plan. Sure COE coffees can fetch hundreds of dollars per kilo but could be awhile before your local cafe has $50 cups of coffee . Here most speciality cafes offer origin coffee as an option to the main blend, at an extra cost of $1-2/cup, this is for coffee beans which cost double the house blend = breakeven at best. real price should be $10 based on standard 18g double shot ristretto.
If your going to aim for a $100 bar (a rising tide lifts all boats) it'll be through media, public awareness, tastings. If you look at wine its tastings tastings tastings- from corner bottle shop, wine cellar, restaurant hosting dinners, lets not forget wine clubs,
Wine prices are also influenced by collectors, i was only reading tonight that the stocks of very old wines 1900-1940 have all but disappeared, so stocks of 50-80's are more valuable.
Anyone got a 1952 Cruizel or Pralus chocolate ???
origin chocolate is the start lets just get out there and let people taste it the rest will follow
The big thing chocolate has (tea hasn't) is that emotional connection just like wine & coffee