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The changing taste of chocolate

We're just not happy with any old chocolate. The bitter, the better, and we'll pay for it.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 16, 2007

BERKELEY, Calif.

Americans' love of chocolate has become a dark and bittersweet affair, and it took a former vintner to make it so.

John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg launched the first U.S. chocolate manufacturing company in half a century, drawing heavily on Scharffenberger's refined palate and his past as a maker of sparkling wines.

Together, they set out to do for dark chocolate what fellow Californian Robert Mondavi had done for wine - demystify, democratize and domesticate it.

Call it kismet, uncanny timing or creative chemistry, but in the 11 years since co-founding Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, they have watched the public's appetite for gourmet chocolate expand from a Valentine's Day extravagance to an everyday indulgence.

"We've gone through a food revolution in this country," Scharffenberger said. Just as Americans have become more sophisticated about wine, whole-bean coffee, artisan cheeses and other products that once were the luxury of certified foodies have been mainstreamed to the masses.

"The one thing that remained to be done was chocolate, and that's what we hit on," Scharffenberger said.

Like the label of a fine wine, the wrapper on a Scharffen Berger chocolate tells you exactly what's inside. It was the first U.S. chocolatier to feature the cacao count prominently on its wrappers - the higher the number, the darker and more bitter the chocolate. And the source of the beans is noted, for those who like knowing whether their chocolate got its start in Madagascar, Ecuador, Ghana or Peru.

Scharffen Berger bars are prominently displayed in the checkout lines of grocers like Trader Joe's, Andronico's and Whole Foods.

Yet venerable players like Godiva Chocolatier Inc., part of the Campbell Soup Co., and Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. jump-started the trend, said Marcia Mogelonsky, an analyst with the market research firm Mintel International. They popularized fancy chocolates with upscale, single-serving packaging, wider distribution and savvy marketing, she said.

Even the Hershey Co., the name synonymous with American chocolate, has invested heavily in premium chocolate, showing it is more than a fad, she said. Besides buying Scharffen Berger 1 1/2 years ago, the company has introduced its own line of premium chocolate bars and late last year bought Dagoba Organic Chocolate.

Between 2003 and 2005, U.S. sales of premium chocolates went from $1.4-billion to $1.79-billion, Mogelonsky said. While it still represents only a fraction of the $15.7-billion chocolate market, the growth rate for the good stuff has been much faster - 28 percent over the three-year period compared with annual rates of 2 to 3 percent for the industry as a whole.

[Last modified February 15, 2007, 23:06:51]