Forum Activity for @Matthew Runeare

Hi Antonino-

Thanks for the information, did you have to do any modifications to the equipment?

-M

Hi Yes you can, we do roast in a coffee roaster and we do 1 ton a month if not more.

DO NOT BUY AMBEX!!! we have been victim of a fraud directly from them and lost about $5000!!! unfortunately we are in South Africa and is very difficult to fight them. if you want i give you the contact details of the factory in Turkey that build the ambex roasters and get it for a 5th of the price...

the roaster is based on a italian made drum and system and the rest is build in Turkey. decent machine and with a 19kg gas bottle we roast at least 15 bags of beans.

I wanted to see if any chocolate producers have used coffee roasters to roast cacao. I'm looking for a mid-size capacity roaster that doesn't look like a toaster oven and doesn't cost $30K. There are a good number of coffee roasters that are significantly less expensive and are much more attractive.

Thanks for your response. I am now thinking I want a Savage bros (or similar) auto temperer (that doesn't require seed) and a melanger/concher? I am using cacao powder and butter at the moment and coconut sugar, but want to source paste instead of powder. I am not sure if a melanger is necessary to mix the sugar in, I am thinking it will help my texture though. I am currently using a vita mix to powder the sugar, and I am tempering using a double boiler. I also wondered what is the difference between a temperer and a moulding machine? I saw a Preformac moulding machine on one of these sites, haven't investigated that company yet.

Beth:

There are a lot of resources here on TheChocolateLife to point you in the right direction. It helps to know what you're looking for. I'd point you in one direction if you were looking for machinery to produce 10MT of chocolate from the bean than I would for a tempering machine or similar.

Make sense?

:: Clay

I've always had very good luck with the Classifieds at the Retail Confectioners' Association website.

You might want to try www.unionmachinery.com . Jim Greenberg and his brother buy and sell a LOT of chocolate equipment for many different volumes of production.

does anyone have any good links for searching used chocolate machinery?

Good news, I got a quote! Thanks everyone =)

Thanks Brad! I will contact them.

Olivier's Chocolate & Candy here in Calgary has a prodution facility with moulding machines and cooling tunnels to address your needs. They can even source out a well priced chocolate for you.

info@oliviers.ca. Chocolate Factory: Bay C 2828 54 Ave SE, Calgary, AB (403) 266-6028

Cheers.

Brad

I apologize, I did not read your post correctly. I thought you would be making the spoons yourself. If you are looking to contract out the work, I have no idea.

I do not know much about chocolate, so I only specified dark chocolate. Assume it is "standard" dark chocolate and not very expensive.

The outsourcing is to take place in Ste Hyacinthe Quebec, approximately 60 km from the "company warehouse" in Montreal, Quebec.

Each batch of 2500kg of chocolate spoons is to be completed every month. Assume delivery is handled by us, not the outsourcer.

We estimate each spoon will be sold for $0.75 at retail.

Assume the molds will be provided by us.

Is there anything else I should add? Our business plan is not supposed to go into minute details so I do not have much more than this, unfortunately. A reasonable estimation is all I need!

Thanks again,
Daniel

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately it is a school project (i cannot say if we will undertake this in the future).

Hi Daniel, are you seeking quotes to potentially actually do this, or just to get numbers for a school project? I can ask at a factory here in Peru that does that kind of small chocolate run, but i can't waste their time on a purely theoretical problem.

saludos,

brian

Please give us more details.

Hi everyone,

I am a student from McGill University working on a business project to produce chocolate spoons for consumption with frozen desserts. I am trying to determine the cost of manufacturing 2500kg of dark chocolate in the form of chocolate spoons (a complete spoon), which is about 275,000 spoons.

The dimensions we have used for the spoons are the following:

4 inches in length, 1 inch width, depth of an inch.
Each spoon is estimated to weigh 9 grams.

The percentage of chocolate desired is 72%.

Would you be able to estimate a cost to manufacture this?

I sent this email to Barry Callebaut as well but I am not sure if they will give a quote on a student project. So if anyone could give some advice on a general number we could expect to pay I would be very greatful!

EDIT: A company replied to me with a quote, case closed. Thank you everyone!

In case anyone wanted to know, they said they would charge us 25 cents per spoon.

Thank you kindly!
Regards,
Daniel G.

I visited WholeFoods last night and noticed how many of chocolate brands are not there anymore that used to be couple of years ago

Update 2: Well, the melting tank arrived back 3 days ago, and I noticed that I could not keep chocolate in a good crystallized state. It appeared to be getting too warm - and sure enough, ten minutes after getting the chocolate pre-crystallized, it goes out of temper and very liquid.

So it appears it has a faulty thermostat now. UG! My other Mol D'art 12l is fine, i have no issues with that one, but with this one: I guess once a lemon, always a lemon. I let the milk chocolate in it cool down after switching it off, stirring - took about an hour - and got it back to tempered state (lovely shiny test and all), checked with thermometer which showed 29.8 degrees C, and what did the thermostat say? It clicked on and off at around 18 degrees...so looks like this one is going BACK to Mol D'art. And this is a brand new machine, twice faulty now.

I am also cancelling my order for 2 x 6l Mol D'art melting kettles, as I have totally lost faith in this brand, so if anyone knows a good RELIABLE brand of melting kettle that would be available in 230v (New Zealand), please let me know.

Update - well, they are now offering to take the unit back and have even given me their UPS details so I don't have to pay the shipping. While I will be down a melter for a while, this is a pretty good change of heart from them.

- Stu

I ran into the same problem with a couple of other pieces of chocolate equipment from Europe.

After tearing the equipment apart completely, I narrowed the problem down to the black plug on the machine where the cord (kind of like a computer power cable) plugs in. Unbeknownst to me, there is a TINY in-line fuse in the plug mechanism, which isn't disclosed on ANY manuals or user documentation. The fuse is on the negative (hot) circuit.

This was a completely frustrating PITA for me, andmay be your problem. My suggestion is to wrap the stupid, and unneccessary fuse with tinfoil, put it back and forget it exists.

Hope that helps.

Brad.

Hi Stu,

Argh! That's a pain! Canyou hire an electrician and charge Mol D'art? I have done some wiring and electronics so perhaps I could see something wrong ifyou sent me a photo of the board where power is coming in, but it's hard unlessyou can test voltages indifferent areas. Might just have to wait till the next time I come down toNew Zealand to visit but not sure yet when that'll be!

The main thingyou have to be careful of when playing with electronics/electrical supplies isdefinitely unplug everything beforeyou open it up but also avoid large capacitors which look like this , and need to be discharged with a plastic handled screwdriverbefore working in their vincinity as they can store charge even when unplugged.

But Mol D'Art should be jumping to fix this, not askingyou to delve into their shoddy machinery!

-Nat

____________________________

Nat Bletter, PhD

Chocolate Flavormeister

Madre Chocolate

http://madrechocolate.com

I purchased a 12l melting kettle through Chocolate World, it is a Mol D'art model. I am in New Zealand which is about as far away from Belgium as you can get.

It failed after one week and it is not the thermostat, the unit is not getting any power.

The advice from Mol D'art through Chocolate World is that it is possibly something wrong with the wiring and suggested I open the melting kettle up by unscrewing all the screws and check the wiring.

Not being an electrician, or having the faintest idea about wiring, this seems pretty strange advice - and extremely unsafe! Has anyone else experienced issues with warranties on Mol D'art products? Have I just bought a lemon?

- Stu

Hi,

I'm new to this site, thought i might get some help here,

I got the Chocolate world magnetic molds, my prints on the chocolates end up with cracks!

Anybody had the same issue? tips greatly appreciated!

How i do it:

I print on transfer sheets from Deco then pour a thin layer of white baking chocolate before filling the mold with brown truffle, leave it about 15 minutes to cool off then put in freezer for 5-10minutes

when the chocolates are out, the designs on them appear cracked:(

I tried:

1.having the white chocolate on a low temperature before pouring it, (as per deco)

2.keeping the designs lightly colored (as per deco)

even tried not to use the freezer at all and keep the molds laying for 12 hours, but then they are so difficult to pop out of the molds, and the molds are difficult to clean,

Any trick how to eliminate the cracking?

Thanks in advance for your help!

So........how are these used inside the curved egg mold? Not sure what you mean here?

Hi Andy,

Take a look of these plastic grill for decoration with variety of designs if it can help you with the decoration of the easter eggs.

Here an example of 3 design I chose for you and there is a lot more

Has anyone got a trick or technique to use standard chocolate transfer sheets in a curved mold such as an easter egg or sphere mold? I am trying to figure out a wall to "pre decorate" easter eggs in the molds with transfer sheets. PCB Creations has terrific blister molds with the transfer decoration in the actual mold-- they are beautiful but when I tried to order them they informed me that that product has a colorant in it that the FDA did not approve and they can not ship them to the USA! Bummer! Does anyone have any ideas? I do not want to airbrush cocoa butter in the molds either

Thanks

Andy J

Clay, I agree.

Brian's evidently very passionate about what he does, and he should be. I've watched some of the videos, and I think it's pretty cool what he's doing. Sometimes I wish I could spend timeat the plantationswhere my beans come from. I certainly don't want anyone to think I discredit his efforts and passion there.

That being said, my question was asked and answered, and my opinions contributed. I have nothing more really to add.

Cheers

Brad

Brad -

At this point I have to step in and point out that it is probably NOT Brian who is making the statements about Maraon being the world's rarest cacao or chocolate. It's the marketing people in the US who are doing it, not the guy who's working the beans in-country.

Brian may (or may not) have any input or comment on the language bring used on the website and in the marketing materials.

Brad and Brian - I think the discussion has been pretty interesting to this point and some valid points have been contributed by a number of ChocolateLife members - but I don't want the thread to devolve into a back and forth in the same tone and spirit as the last couple of posts. That won't do anything to move the discussion forward.

Brian;

You call me a hypocrite, yet you openly admit to not knowing if your chocolate is the rarest or not, while at the same time actively promoting that it is.

You call me a jerk because I openly ask the question and call you on it.

I never once called you abrasive.

I simply called you to justify how you call your chocolate the world's rarest, and you could provide NO definitive justification for doing so. Instead, you resorted to calling the person who asked the question, a hypocrite, abrasive, and a jerk - tactics ofsomeone who's been caught in a lie andbacked into a corner, which is exactly what I did to you here. I backed you into a corner.

Nobody canquestion how rare the cocoa is that I use, and I don't claim to make the world's rarest chocolate, because I don't make the world's rarest chocolate.

Nor do you, so stop publiclyclaiming to.

I have no problem being the "bad boy" of the industry - pointing fingers and blowing whistles. Somebody has to. At the same time, if I'm wrong, and I seldom am, I will be the FIRST one to admit it, and make changes to make things right.

I post on forums like this, not because I'm out to make friends. I post on forums like this to legitimately help people when I can, and to let people know that what they read isn't always accurate or true.

Having said that, not a single person who has involved themselves in this conversation believes you have the world's rarest chocolate. It's not just me.

Like I said before, you should focus on your fabulous relationships with your growers and the special effort you make to harvest the cocoa you use to have your chocolate made for you. That IS truly special.

Brad.

I found everyone's comments very interesting and educational. Let's just say, a very rare cacao. I like the idea of marketing the direct connect with the farmer and the hands-on in the post harvesting and processing. What knowledge all of you have shared will sure help me ask better questions as a wander cacao farms in the DR this summer. Thank you all.

Ok Brad, many of your forays into the forums end exactly here, and now i see why in a more complete light. You're saying worlds rarest cacao and we're saying worlds rarest chocolate. we both think we're justified in using the language we use. I maintain that you have a rather abusive nature on these boards, and you rather abusively disagree with me.

I still think you're probably a pretty good guy, I've had many friends who are abrasive and hard to embrace but worth the effort and you come across that way. This must be incredibly boring to anybody that bothers to read through it so for my part I will drop it there. I hope I have the chance to meet you someday, try your chocolate and hopefully we can drink a beer and have some laughs.

brian

In a debate, when one has absolutely no recourse, or valid reply to a point, they attack just as you have. At that point, the discussion is over.

Right now, we have a limited supply of Claire Echevaria's Porecelana I acquired a couple of years ago. Is it rare? Yeah. Is porcelana commonly considered the holy grail of chocolate? Yeah. That's why Amedei sells their limited supply of blended porcelanafor $25 per 53 gram bar! Can you only get a ton or so a year? Yeah. I guess when you weigh that amount to the several billion lbs of cocoa available on the market every year, it would be pretty safe to deduce that it's the among the rarest in the world. If it weren't EVERYONE would make chocolate with it.

We also have a small supply of Chuao. Everybody's heard of Chuao. Heck, there's even chocolate companies who have named themselves after that bean! Those beans are among the rarest and most sought afteras well. No refuting it.

We also have a small supply of beans from a plantation in the Cuyagua district of Venezuela. Same story as the Chuao.

Are Jim's beans rare? I don't know. They produce an amazing chocolate, and form the basis for all of our confections and a couple of our bars. However they are primarily a well fermented and harvested brazilian forastero. There's nothing that really makes them "rare".

We DO use some of the rarest cocoa beans in the world, and I've had some of the most prolific chocolatiers walk through our doors and spend time learning what it is that we do here.

What I DON'T do is call my chocolate the rarest in the world. It's not. Nor is yours Brian.

I'm not the one being a jerk or a hypocrite. I'm simply asking pointed questions. ...and I'm CERTAINLY not lying to my customers by advertising it as the "Rarest Chocolate In The World", then openly admiting in a public forum(IN WRITING NONETHELESS!!!) that I don't reallyknow if it's the rarest in the world.

Who's the jerk now????

Brad

Ok Brad I accept that your opinion and mine may differ on this, I wouldn't call our approach deceptive and very misleading, as its imposssible to determine exactly what is the worlds rarest. Perhapsonly the beans from 1 INDIVIDUAL POD OF CACAO (Sebastian !!!!!) can be called the worlds rarest.

I will say that your Choklat website features the phrase "We start with the rarest cocoa beans..." center front and large on the home page. when i click on Learn More I have a choice between Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, and Truffles and Confections. Milk Chocolate and Truffles have no information about the cacao used. Clicking on Learn More under Dark Chocolate leads to information about Jim's brazilian beans, nothing about mexico, nothing about porcelana, nothing about 50lb batches with distinct flavors per batch.

Is your chocolate really made fromthe "Worlds Rarest Cacao?" Clearly not, by your own standards. Is that "deceptive and very misleading". I frankly don't think so, but it is hypocritical for you to criticize me for doing exactly what you are doing. By your own standards you should probably make some changes to your website asap so as to stop deceiving and misleading your own clients.

I think you're probably a good guy Brad but it seems like you're using "honesty" as a shield to be a hypocrite and a jerk on these boards. How about a little civility and getting your own marketing house in order before you start throwing mud against my good name?

brian

One of the greatprivilegesI have is to taste lots of things - some of it very good, some of it very bad - however they all add to the richness of the experience in total. I've had (even made) some of the rarest beans in the world (ie hand pollination of single flowers) - where there literally is no other pod (ie beans) like it in the world. Sometimes they've even been crossed with close cousins of cocoa, geneticallysimilar, but a different family. Now, that's about as rare as rare gets. Most of the time,albeitrare, the product is unremarkable from a flavor standpoint - sometimes evenawful. Sometimes they're remarkably remarkable. However, in each experience, one learns something & deepens the richness and depth of the experience as a whole.

For me, if i'm doing something I love with people i enjoy, learning along the way, and leaving a wake behind me that betters the lives of those i touched, I findfulfillmentin that intersection. Chocolate, generally speaking, is a consumer experience that can dovetail nicely in that equation! The otherintriguingpart is that no matter how much i know, or how much i think i know, there's always something new to learn, another way to look at things, and great people to work with.

In a post a couple of hours ago, Brian wrote "We can probably all agree not to parse each other's marketing language down to the last degree."

Personally, I think his quote goes to the root of what we as artisinal chocolate makersCAN change! We MUST be clear to the customer about what it is that we're selling. If we aren't, it not only hurts us, but also discredits every other artisan chocolate maker and chocolatier in the eyes of the consumer.

I've taken a lot of heat from consumers defensive of "their" chocolatiersin the past couple of years because I've stepped up and boldly spoken the truth about what I do and what goes on in the industry - truth that is substantiated by considerable, and in many cases irrefutable research findings, then blatantly contradicts what they claim to do. As a result, many of my peers (a couple of big ones too) have taken enough flak from customers that they have actually changed the verbiage on their packaging to more accurately reflect what it is that they do. It doesn't diminish the quality of their product. It simply offers the consumer more accurate portrayal of their crafts.

We've all pretty much agreed on this forum that Fortunato #4 is in fact NOT the world's rarest chocolate. Yet the website I was sent to BOLDLY states that it's, and I quote: "The World's Rarest Chocolate".

I make a 70% bar from a Mexican Porcelana bean I acquired a couple of years ago. I make the chocolate in small 50lb batches. Each batch turns out slightly different. Given that it's Porcelana, and it's made 50lbs at a time, could THIS be the world's rarest chocolate? I don't know. I certainly don't tell people it is. What I tell people is that porcelana is considered the "holy grail" of chocolate, and is considered to be among the rarest in the world. That's all true.

This HAS been an interesting discussion, and I have learned a tremendous amount from it. However, after digging down to the basis of it, even Brian admits that he doesn't know if his beans are rarest. Given that, he certainly can't claim that his chocolate is the rarest. Yet Maranon the website does, and to me that's deceptive and very misleading. (Sorry Brian. That's just how I see it).

A better approach might be to celebrate the effort needed to collect these beans from the growers and process them into a truly special chocolate - something the average person has never experienced. Sell the story and the relationship with the growers. I think that would get more play from a marketing standpoint.

Anyone's thoughts?

Brad

Hi Brian,

Just for your info, I'm since some three years not involved in Original Beans anymore, and I must say the beans from Piura are to my knowlegde a true criollo, but not a true "porcelana" (what we thought initially, and actually this was discussed during the workshop and reviewed afterwards by a Venzuelan expert that visited all regions around Piura).

We have sent photos to the people in the US and actually they mentioned based on the bean cut and shape of the fruit, that around Piura the cocoa is very likely the same Andean Criollo related to the Nacional as you have in your region. Well, anyway, Peru has an interesting future, when looking at the fine flavour cocoa beans, and all initiatives (like yours) are more than welcome to promote it.

Best !

Rodney

hi all, lots of interesting stuff here. to take it one by one:

It is correct that we have not tested every cacao in the world, so is ours definitively the rarest? I don't know, but I do know that there is no other source of high altitude, 40% white beans, pure Nacional cacao on the planet that we know of right now other than ours so we consider it as rare as anything else out there. Brad uses the phrase "the rarest cocoa beans" referring to beans from Jim Lucas' Brazilian plantation, which is probably not the smallest in the world. Rodney calls his Piura beans "ultra-rare" porcelana criollo, but to my knowledge Cepicafe has not genetically tested them to show Criollo genetics, and Piura's production is way more than than the little valley where we work. We're all in the business of marketing and selling chocolate as effectively and ethically as we can. We can probably all agree not to parse each other's marketing language down to the last degree. Especially because i've met Rodney, like him, liked his sample chocolate a lot and want him and Original Beans to succeed wildly. I'm sure I would feel the same about Brad and Jim and their cacao and chocolate if I could meet them.

I agree with you Brad that these distinctions are pretty hard for anyone who isn't neck deep in this stuff to understand or take seriously or care about. But people are getting turned on to really good chocolate these days, the market may be going in the right direction so that's good for all of us.

Rodney the existence of our cacao brings into question whether Nacional originated in Peru or Ecuador. Ours is genetically equal to what is considered the reference example of nacional, but nothing of comparable genetic purity has been tested recently anywhere in Ecuador that I know of, nobody knows definitively where it comes from, and the transmission route from one place to the other is also not known. Or maybe Sebastian knows something about this??......

Consider your opinion accepted Sebastian, I didn't take it as disrespect, you sound far more knowledgable than me. when you initially said "blend" I took it to mean blending beans from various sources and varieties to make fortunato 4 chocolate which we don't do.

Our couverture is not being used in any baked goods that I'm aware of, for exactly the reason Brad mentioned - it wouldn't make economic sense for the client, and it would be a waste of the chocolate's unique flavor.

Finally, Clay is right Steve Devries was instrumental in our start up phase as a consultant and deserves credit - thank you Steve!

Good luck to all, have a great day!

brian

Not to pick nits, but this discussion also raises questions about the meaning of rare. What are we talking about? Rarest beans? Or rarest chocolate?

I can argue that a small batch chocolate maker like Dandelion that is making, maybe, a couple of hundred kilos of a particular chocolate - at most - is making chocolate that is far rarer than Fortunato #4, of which Felchlin makes many tonnes at a time. So we can argue that Dandelion's chocolate is far rarer than Fortunato.

Now Dandelion might be making their chocolate from an origin that produces far more beans than Brian does for Maraon. So we can argue that Maraon's beans are far rarer.

QED - rare beans and rare chocolate are not the same thing. My guess is that there are many chocolates that are far rarer than Maraon.

Also, lifting some more of the veil. One of the experts on post-harvest processing and fermentation that Brian mentions is Steve DeVries. Credit where credit is due.

This is interesting indeed.

Being a born and raised Alberta redneck, I'm going to try and dumb things down a bit here to get a better understanding of what everyone is talking about. PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong. I'm simply trying to understand.

I understand that there is only one species of cocoa, and that is Theobroma Cocoa. I also understand that there are many "varieties" of theobroma cocoa which may or may not have evolved over 100's or thousands of years to adapt to their unique growing environments.

I also understand that there can be and often are genetic variations of beans even inside a single cocoa pod, meaning that a "variety" (aka: Nacional or Arriba for example) is often be a blend of many genetic variations from a particular region (mentioned just above).

Comparatively, there is only one species of human (homosapien), but many different races (aka: Varieties), and among those varieties many different genetic variations.

Am I wrong by using this comparative analogy?

If I'm not far off track, wouldn't it be reasonable to deduce that almost every small grower produces the rarest cocoa in the world? After all, the amount of beans they harvest don't even register on the scale of world (or even regional) cocoa production, and given the genetic varieties and associated percentages of those varieties that will present themselves in that particular harvest at that time is unique in itself (aka: rare). Duplicating that combination would be as likely as winning a lottery.

Further to that, only by combining the product of MANY growers in a region do you begin to create a "common" product which can be labelled for that region (such as Nacional or Arriba). It seems to me the only way this works, as you will NEVER get a metric ton of one single genotype, let alone many tons that represent a variety such as Nacional or Arriba.

Having said all of that, from a business perspective does the consumer really care, or is this simply a philosophical discussion amongst a bunch of chocolate geeks?

Personally, I don't think the consumer gives a pinch of pigeon poop. The mass majority of the general public still looks at chocolate as "Dark, Milk, White". The fact that single origin "Varieties" are making their way into the market and being well accepted is an indication that people are learning and becoming more discerning. I still don't think they care about the genotypes. That's more of a marketing ploy in my opinion - which is something that Maranon is using to differentiate it's product from others.

I also agree with Sebastian, that if this incredibly rare chocolate is being used by pastry chefs and other culinary professionals for baked goods and such, the flavour is questionable. In my opinion, the price of the chocolate doesn't reflect it's quality, or the quality isn't there, or it isn't being marketed correctly. Case in point: A chef isn't going to use a $90 bottle of Chiraz in a stew. He's going to use either a very inexpensive wine, or the left over wine from several opened bottles the previous day.

I do however think it's important for "chocolate geeks" and "redneck chocolate geeks" alike to learn and understand where their cocoa comes from, and how they can differentiate genotypes in order to create flavour profiles in their final chocolate, which in itself makes it unique to that geek who produces small batches of fine flavour dark chocolate. I also think it's less important to industrial chocolate makers.

Am I wrong? Am I out to lunch? Your thoughts?

No disrespect meant Brian, just my honest opinion. I'm quite familiar with the particular material you're using - in fact, i can tell you just about anything you'd like to know about it. It's precise genetic code. It's variability from tree to tree, or from pod to pod on the same tree. It's self compatibility. It's variation from generations F1 through to F12. I can tell you the top 10 most prevalent microorganisms that were present and active during fermentation. If i needed to, i could probably give a pretty good approximation of how you dried, roasted, and milled them as well.

The generational phenotypic differences that present at any given generation are indicative of an inherent genetic 'blend' in the bean genetics - when i indicate there's a blend occurring, i'm referring to the fact that any chocolate made from that clone will be, inherently, a blend - unless you manually segregate out the phenotypes (which still would result in a blend actually, just less of one) - but that makes it financially unviable as you don't have access to sufficient volume to justify doing so. It's a bit like breeding 2 non-purebred animals - their offspring will be a blend because that's the nature of their parents.

I wish you all the best in your venture! Remember, mine is just one opinion amongst many. There's plenty of people who think Apple computers are less than desirable, yet they're one of the most successful companies on the planet.