Dive Brief:
- The Mast brothers have become famous for their $10 bean to bar chocolate bars, but members of the media and artisanal chocolate community have thrown the authenticity of this chocolate and its backstory into question.
- A blogger for DallasFood.org has produced a series chronicling the tales of Rick and Michael Mast that alleges that the company has not always produced its chocolate from scratch, as the brothers claim they have done from the beginning.
- Instead, the blogger and others in the artisanal chocolate industry say, based on evidence including emails and past conversations, that in the beginning, the Mast brothers used remelted chocolate from Valrhona, a commercial French chocolate manufacturer. Since, their success has been based on "sophisticated marketing strategy, to earn as much money as possible as fast as possible," Georg Bernardini, wrote in his book, "Chocolate—The Reference Standard."
Dive Insight:
Whether the bars are authentic bean to bar chocolate, this story demonstrates how powerful the right packaging can be, particularly for craft producers. That includes paper wrapping that Bernardini describes as "almost magnificent," and the DallasFood.org blogger wrote that for many fans, "the packaging is the product."
The Mast brothers and their chocolate's origin story makes claims that they were making artisanal chocolate when few others were, were self-taught chocolate makers, and invented their own small-batch chocolate-making machines because none were on the market at that time. However, all of these claims have been contested by evidence confirmed by Quartz.
The Mast brothers have also depended on a mantra of transparency, though their actions reportedly suggest otherwise, such as not answering questions about investors or equipment and not allowing the public into their Brooklyn Navy Yard facility.
However, despite the issues taken with the brothers, their chocolate, and their backstory, some will still admit that the brothers have done a service to the artisanal chocolate community by popularizing the market.
Chocolate experts are "really unhappy that the brand has grown as a result of misleading people," 15-year chocolate industry veteran Clay Gordon told Quartz. "But by the same token, they’ve been this important gateway chocolate." Other chocolate makers described the Mast brothers to Quartz as "one of the craft chocolate world’s great ambassadors."