Craft chocolate is a fine food comparable to specialty coffees, craft beers, fine wines, and more. It is no longer a junk food made with who-knows-what from who-knows-where. Consumers care more about flavor, quality, transparency, and ethics than ever before.
The complexity of flavor in fine chocolate cannot be rivaled by mass-produced, cheap chocolate, which uses poor flavor cocoa in return for higher crop yields. Craft chocolate sticks to using as few ingredients as possible. Cheap chocolates use higher amounts of sugar, flavors, and low-quality ingredients to mask bad flavors and reduce prices.
Large chocolate companies have notoriously failed to have ethical business practices. They have had decades to prevent child labor, and sometimes even slavery, yet have still failed to meet those goals. Farmers are kept in poverty, vast portions of West African forests have been decimated, and they still cannot trace much of their cocoa. Craft chocolate makers pay well above commodity and “Fair Trade” prices, enabling better lives for farmers. They source their beans from specific locations and know the practices of those farmers and laborers. Unlike the genetically modified cacao that large corporations use, the cacao used in craft chocolate requires shade, thus reducing clear-cutting and deforestation.
Craft chocolate, like craft beer, is focused on small batches, high-quality ingredients, and flavor. Making fine chocolate is a slow, time-intensive process where every step plays a large role in the final flavor. The focus is on letting each bean’s flavor shine through to tell its story.