We have the main Valrhona couvertures in the shop, in wrapped kilos – not at bulk prices though! It is the same chocolate as the bars, in fact Guanaja, Caraibe, Manjari all started as couverture first, then became bars.

For many years I only bought fine chocolate like this, buying 12kg at a time and cutting it up for friends etc. You can’t beat breaking a chunk of couverture with a knife and then eating it! That was kind of the start of this whole thing here.

If you think the expensive fine chocolate is made by profiteering money grabbing business men you would be mistaken (I’m leaving Valrhona aside for a moment …). Some of them have good businesses, some of them struggle. Most of them work very hard out of passion for what they do, and if they had any sense would do something else. In other words, it’s more than a business, they do it for passion. There are not many I’ve met that are not pathologically obsessed with chocolate.

It’s the other end of the business where the problem is – the big companies. Often the staff in the big boys have frighteningly little knowledge of anything. I think it is the multi-nationals who are making a bad deal for us all – on health, quality, trade, origin and conditions – go kick them! Or take a high street chocolatier who may actually make their own chocolates, ask them the origin of their chocolate and they will tell you ‘Norwich’ (a small town in UK) or ‘Belgium’, without the faintest clue of where the beans come from or the conditions of the workers.

At least when you pay more for fine chocolate, you are supporting a part of the industry that maybe cares a little more and has a direct connection with source. Or more cynically, if a scandal about growing conditions comes out in a plantation used for an origin chocolate, there’s no place to hide for that small chocolate maker. They can’t deny it, and this is actually becoming a point of competition between them – how well they treat the plantation workers. (e.g. Chuao, see other threads for this).

Anyway, this is fun! Sorry Alex ………

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

be my guest, martin, banter on :-)
your points are well made. as are lone’s.
gunna, as far as i know, this site’s primary purpose is not selling chocolate.
but, go ahead and discuss to thy heart’s content. sorry for breaking the flow.

Lonely, thanks for the tip. I will look into bulk prices on Amedei aswel.

Martin, fascinating stuff. Thanks for putting me straight on whether the blocks are the same as the bars.

“If you think the expensive fine chocolate is made by profiteering money grabbing business men you would be mistaken (I’m leaving Valrhona aside for a moment …). Some of them have good businesses, some of them struggle. Most of them work very hard out of passion for what they do, and if they had any sense would do something else. In other words, it’s more than a business, they do it for passion. There are not many I’ve met that are not pathologically obsessed with chocolate.”

This sounds more promising Martin. Perhaps many top chocolatier’s work for every penny they earn. I would like to think so. There is certainly no debating the fact that they deserve to earn a good living for having studied so hard for years and for the amount of passion they put into their work.

“At least when you pay more for fine chocolate, you are supporting a part of the industry that maybe cares a little more and has a direct connection with source. Or more cynically, if a scandal about growing conditions comes out in a plantation used for an origin chocolate, there’s no place to hide for that small chocolate maker. They can’t deny it, and this is actually becoming a point of competition between them – how well they treat the plantation workers. (e.g. Chuao, see other threads for this).”

I am so glad to hear that. It must surely make us all feel better about buying from the very best. Perhaps the master chocolatiers are the cocoa industry’s best friend. With their specialised education on every asset of chocolate production, from cocao tree to bar, they must surely be doing more for ethical cocoa production than bigger companys’ business men and women, who are completely ignorant and also don’t have the necessary job discriptions to allow for decissions that increase ethics and decrease profits. The more competition there is between chocolatiers to reinvest money for better working conditions and ecological care, the better. I am sure some of the most profiteering chocolatier’s could do more but all in all it is sounding very positive.

Thanks for the education.

-Zero is where truth begins. Didn’t you know? You can’t say it wasn’t obvious.-

i just got to thinking about the price of good chocolate when i came across a calculation. i don’t want to mention any names but here are some numbers:
wholesale sells this chocolate for 40 euros. add to that VAT of around 4 euros and you get 44 euros. the same chocolate goes for 60 euros at one retailer and 78(!) at another. the difference in retail price is regional and the retailer selling for 60 has to pay much less rent for example than the latter. this chocolate, being as expensive as it is, doesn’t sell in great amounts, which might justify the high price somehow. or are the prices simply absurd?
how is a retail price calculated? rent, pay for employees, advertizing, cleaning, local taxes… what else?
in a more extreme example (because it doesn’t involve very different regions): i can buy product x in one store in munich for around 16 euros, another store sells it for 21! damn!
i am not trying to ruin retail. just interested in where the money goes.

Marcolinis Porcelana bar costs £8 in London.

“Porcelana: The Holy Grail of Pure Criollos” (Maricel E. Presilla)

polar, you shouldn’t forget that the fresh sea air and its high content of salt and iodine will make just about anything worth twice it’s initial value ;-)

maybe we should all just take a trip to venezuela and try to get some chocolate straight from the trees :-D

right on! ;-)
i’d be interested in seeing venezuela sometime.