You may be surprised to learn that…
Most “chocolatier” from middle East to Eastern USA , including Astoria chocolate, Godiva, all buy bulk chocolate and use it as an ingredient in their confections but do not actually “make” the chocolate itself.
Why Does This Matter?
It absolutely matters. Unlike here at ChocoNature, not a single chocolatier in eastern USA (including those already mentioned) has control over the most important steps in developing the flavor and texture of the chocolate they use – steps such as:
• The variety of bean used
• The country of origin
• The fermentation process
• The storage
• Transportation and handling
• Roasting
• Refining and final processing into chocolate
• Quality of ingredients such as vanilla, cocoa butter, and powdered milk.

We are aware of reseller of chocolate who promote the fact that their chocolate is “made to their specifications”. While that may be true, the “specifications” are limited to the percentages of the ingredients in the recipe, and NOT the qualities of the ingredients themselves.
A good analogy here would be to take all of the grapes grown in the California, and process them in one factory in one batch, then give the blended juice back to the vineyards to process into wine. The great flavor of the good grapes would be tainted by the bad grapes, and the bad grapes would blend in with the good ones thereby improving the taste of the bad ones. Each grower needs to bank on the gamble that there are more good grapes in this year’s batch than bad grapes. While there would be subtle differences between the vineyards due to fermentation practices, etc., the wine for the most part would taste fairly consistent across the entire region.

For the most part, this is how the chocolate industry works, as over 43% of the world’s chocolate supply is made by just two companies.
In our case, we buy only the best, hand sorted beans, from small plantations and sources we know, just as a premier vineyard millisim* would produce fine wine from their own grapes as opposed to the juice they would get from the regional pool.
Our extremely selective process allows us to produce small batches of chocolate that can’t be touched by large producers. Consequently, our growth will be restricted by the volume of quality cocoa beans we can purchase.

* French word to describe a Great Reserve of wine.