‘It takes years of hard work to make a commercial success of bean-to-bar chocolate, and it is heartbreaking to be bypassed by a competitor who is using a shortcut to profit from our story of authentic manufacture’
This Friday, Valentine's Day, we will receive our largest-ever delivery of cacao beans, organic Peruvian from Alto Huallabamba: 4 metric tons. I know it isn’t a lot compared to the big guys, but for us, we will squeeze seven pallets of beans into our little workshop.
And the price, well. Let’s just say we’ve put it all on the line again. Along with the second-hand ball mill and Turkish drum roaster we recently purchased and all the other kit we’ve been slowly acquiring to make chocolate, we now have a pretty serious little craft chocolate workshop.
When we started our bean-to-bar journey in 2011, it was clear to us that our couverture-made chocolate should not be confused with our bean-to-bar chocolate; for the sake of our integrity as bean-to-bar makers, we offered our customers proper transparency.
People reacted to the new flavours of our bean-to-bar chocolate, we didn't always get it perfect, but people always had an appreciation for what we told them about how chocolate is made.
We turned exclusively to wholesale, and around 2018, we upscaled some of our kit and switched to producing from paste instead of couverture. Now, we are about to transition to full bean-to-bar production.
It took us years to get there, but we did it!
We’ve done it through hard graft, loans, grants, and our own re-investment of pretty much anything beyond what we needed to survive.
Please grab a piece of dark chocolate or a coffee and listen to my story. I hope you find it interesting ...
On Friday, 31 January, I was wrapping up my chocolate-making when I looked on my Instagram to see a post by a chocolate blogger in America, who had received a Cocoa Runners box containing Chocolate Tree, Bare Bones, and Ocelot.
Chocolate Tree and Bare Bones work from bean to bar. Ocelot is remelting Original Beans Couvertures made by Felchlin in Switzerland.
The post's author incorrectly assumes Ocelot is making chocolate from bean to bar. This is not the first time this has happened. I've seen so far three social media posts in which Ocelot is mistaken for making chocolate from #beantobar.
It takes years of hard work to make bean-to-bar chocolate a commercial success, and it is heartbreaking to be bypassed by a competitor who is using a shortcut to profit from our story of authentic manufacture.
Authentic 'Craft Chocolate' makers
When the definition of ‘Craft Chocolate’ becomes blurred like this, it endangers the future of all real chocolate makers.
Clearly, the definition of Craft Chocolate is at risk if Cocoa Runners validates Ocelot as a chocolate maker.
Ocelot is now owned by Original Beans, which markets its chocolate in a way that allows it to take market share from authentic Craft Chocolate Makers.
I am presenting the case that Craft Chocolate is in a fragile moment when the definition of what it means to be a Craft Chocolate maker could decide the future of people like me and Friederike (my wife and Chocolate Tree co-founder) who have toiled to create a new sector in the market that stands for transparency and integrity, and craftsmanship.
If we accept that Ocelot remelting couverture made for Original Beans by Felchlin in Switzerland can be considered ‘Scottish Craft Chocolate’ and that their team are ‘Chocolate Makers, ’ then this opens the doors for other couverture chocolatiers to redefine themselves as Craft Chocolate Makers.
What does that mean for the future of Craft Chocolate?
Most wholesale buyers and retailers I meet at the shows we exhibit at are confused by the chocolate industry's terminology. They don’t know that Mondelēz International owns Hu or that Casa Luker is the couverture most small UK chocolate brands use.
They are easily misled by claims on the packs of these bars, such as ‘Farm to Bar’ by Cox & Co. and ‘Every Bean We Use’ by Chocaffair, both of which reference Casa Luker.
Is it time for the Craft Chocolate sector to be called to action to put in place reserved terms? ‘Chocolate Maker’ ‘Craft Chocolate’ Bean to Bar’ ‘Beans’? Should these words be protected to prevent corrosion of the Craft Chocolate market?
If the Craft Chocolate sector becomes corroded, Big Chocolate’s most significant loss may be its source of innovation and inspiration.
Craft Chocolate is pioneering and able to bring fresh ideas to the chocolate industry. I know most small-business chocolate makers don’t have much positive to say about the big guys. Still, over the years, Friederike and I have grown to appreciate that their market size is considerably, almost unthinkably different.
Big Chocolate vs Craft Chocolate
We depend on big chocolate to give our Craft Chocolate context and difference. In my experience, the big guys have been surprisingly supportive of improvements to the chocolate sector, which we are pioneering with our creative small businesses.
I understand better the work of companies like Tony’s Chocolonely, who are changing significant industry norms.
At Chocolate Tree, we decided to pivot our business away from export and wholesale and towards our local market in East Lothian. We’ll finally open our farm-based factory/workshop in East Lothian for tours, where we will show people our entirely bean-to-bar craft chocolate operation.
We hope we’ll also open a small shop and return to retail locally. We don’t want to be big; we just want to be allowed to protect the integrity of our work on behalf of all bean-to-bar chocolate makers.
As long as the wholesale market is in this state, there’s little point in competing there. Re-melters and outsourcers can enter the Craft Chocolate market and upscale much faster without the finance or knowledge required to make chocolate.
It feels like we are returning to 20 years ago when all the options were from remelted couverture. Think of the flavour diversity that bean-to-bar Craft Chocolate has brought into the space and what we stand to lose if we go backwards.
We don’t believe this is the future for Craft Chocolate that consumers want from us.
About Chocolate Tree
Alastair Gower is a chocolate maker and co-founder of Chocolate Tree, an award-winning organic craft chocolate company established in Scotland in 2005. Its mission is to protect biodiversity, positively impacting people and the planet. Chocolate Tree purchases organic agro-forested cacao sourced from smallholder farms in South and Central America, ‘taking a down-to-earth but artisanal approach to our chocolate making.’
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