Raising the Bar by Pam Williams

Author:Pam Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fine chocolate;cacao;CCN-51;farm to lab;fair trade;cheap chocolate;craftmanship;organically speaking;junior mints;recipes;fermentation;herloom cacao preservation fund
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-02-25T19:05:05+00:00

“Cheap Chocolate” Should Be an Oxymoron

Reflecting back to the story that opened this section, and given the truth of what Volker said, it’s amazing Art Pollard survived to bear the expense of experimenting with those Chuao beans. When Amano Chocolates was starting in 2007, Art attended a trade show to pitch his first products. At lunch, he found himself at a hot dog stand talking to one of the other vendors who was interested in his company’s chocolate.

“I would love to use your chocolate to dip pretzels in,” he said “How much does it cost?”

“Fifteen dollars a pound.”

“Fifteen dollars!” he screamed. “I won’t pay over three.”

“Really? I can’t even buy good-quality cocoa for three dollars a pound.”

That pretty sums up the biggest disconnect between farmers, manufacturers, and consumers: Art Pollard spent more for his beans than this person was willing to pay for the finished product. This person did not see all the work being done from the ground up. Neither do most consumers. But they must. Chocolate may be a matter of choice for consumers, but it is a matter of survival for farmers—a delicate balance that does not necessarily work for long-term sustainability.

All chocolate lovers, but particularly fine flavor customers, must accept the fact that cocoa producers are underpaid as individuals and even in cooperatives—poor farmers working together in a group remain simply a group of poor farmers. Consumers must understand the amount of work that goes into producing quality cocoa if it is to survive in the future. That’s what will create some sustainable livelihoods for these farmers. If it tastes fantastic, people should pay more. And if people pay more, farmers will find a way to produce more. We shouldn’t need movies like Nothing Like Chocolate (2011) by Kum-Kum Bhavnani, but we do. Too often our outrage at media reports about forced child labor behind cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire and chocolate built on the backs of poorly compensated indigenous farmers and inexpensive imported labor outweighs our sticker shock when a Hershey bar goes up in price or the first time a potential fine flavor customer picks up a bar of Amano’s Chuao chocolate. Ultimately, both the Amano bar and the Hershey bar are too cheap.

Unlike in the wine market, most chocolate consumers do not see the value proposition of paying more for quality at the high end and many have a hard time justifying fifteen dollars a pound for the world’s best chocolate bars. In fine flavor chocolate and the industry as a whole, only chocolatiers and bonbon manufacturers have crossed this price threshold with consumers willing pay up to one hundred dollars a pound for bonbons. There are many possible reasons for this: packaging, in-store presentation, the fact that many boxed chocolates are given as gifts, the fact that there is far more refinement and artistry—not to mention quality ingredients—going into those bonbons. Perhaps their European heritage ties them to a lingering belief that the French, Belgians, or Swiss make the best chocolate. Yet even

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