Upscale Calif. chocolate makers’ sweet success

Consumers’ taste for rich, high-end confections is growing

	John Scharffenberger says his upscale chocolates are part of a larger food revolution going on in America.
Noah Berger / AP

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updated 5:44 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 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.

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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,” said Scharffenberger. 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 also noted, for those who like knowing whether their chocolate got its start in Madagascar, Ecuador, Ghana or Peru.

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

Adrienne Newman
Noah Berger / AP
Adrienne Newman, an aspiring chocolatier from Austin, Texas, smells cacao beans during a tour of Scharffen Berger chocolate factory. She's hooked on the expensive stuff and can't eat a Hershey's bar any more.
Yet venerable players like Reading, Pa.-based Godiva Chocolatier Inc., part of The Campbell Soup Co., and Ghirardelli Chocolate Co., now headquartered in San Leandro, Calif., 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 1½ years ago, the company has introduced its own line of premium chocolate bars and late last year purchased Ashland, Ore.-based Dagoba Organic Chocolate.