Do Chocolatiers Make Their Own Chocolate?
A Reader Writes, “I was reading a site that instructed how to make chocolate from beans. Does the higher end small/single store chocolate shop make their own from the cocoa beans or do they purchase some type of intermediate product and work it up to product from that point? Would it be unprofitable for an owner to use bulk amounts of El Rey (for example) making his chocolate too expensive?.” One of the relatively unknown secrets of the chocolate world … Is that there are very few chocolatiers (i.e., a person or company that makes confections) that make their own chocolate from beans. This is especially true for smaller companies – the skills required to make chocolate from beans are vastly different from the skills required to make confections. Some of the companies that make chocolate and confections are Valrhona, Cluizel, and Bonnat, all French, and Amedei, who is Italian. At one time the Canadian company Ganong used to make chocolate and confections but I don’t know if they are s
