Chocolatiers = Re-melters?
Posted in:
Opinion
Hi Hallot,Thank you for your comment.I agree. I definitely should have said: "Bean-to-bar means starting with cocoa beans and ending with finished chocolate bars in a facility or facilities owned by one single company."I agree that "one facility" isn't the important issue, and that one company that owns multiple facilities, such as yourself, definitely still "makes chocolate from bean to bar or from bean to bonbon as the case may be. I agree with Clay's definition below. However, I would add a little more clarification and say that "bean-to-bar" should definitely mean that one molds tempered chocolate in some way. In other words, if a company makes chocolate and then ships it off to be molded into bars by another company, under contract, then doesn't count as bean-to-bar.I can think of a likely situation where all of this gets even more complicated. For example, take the case of a company that molds tempered blocks of chocolate that it has made to be sold to other companies, but also ships off some of that chocolate to be molded under contract into retail bars under its own brand name. In this case, I would say that though the company in question is basically a bean-to-bar company, for them to simply make such a claim without clarification would likely confuse their customers into thinking that they mold their own retail bars. Since this would be untrue, I am arguing that it would be ethically inappropriate for them to make such a claim without some sort of disclaimer--perhaps on their bar packaging, such as:"Molded into bars for X Company by Y company."I don't think that the end consumer should be put in the position, by language used by the company, or conveniently not used, of reasonably believing that something is true when it actually is not.Best,AlanP.S. I don't blame companies for the mistaken claims of others as long as the company has done their best to correct them. It is inevitable that things will be said or written about a company that are not completely true. That said, especially when dealing with the press, which is apt to reach a large number of people, I think that it is particularly important that we should really make an effort to clarify for them what it is that we do and don't do. It is too bad that we can't count on most of the press to do their homework and simply get it right, but they have proven over and over again, that as a group, they simply make factual errors all too often. So, I think it must become our job, as industry insiders, to police them since they don't police themselves effectively. It's too bad too; I've got other things to do.P.P.S If you are a journalist and never make factual errors then you have my utmost respect.
