From Brooklyn to the Bay Area, tongues are wagging over news that Mast Brothers Chocolate Makers possibly misled customers about its pricey bars in pretty packages.
According to The Associated Press, the headlines began in December after DallasFood.org, written by local blogger Scott Craig, published a series about Rick and Michael Mast of Brooklyn.
The brothers with the hipster beards have been toasted in food circles for their stylishly wrapped chocolate bars that can cost $10 apiece.
The problem is that the brothers described their company as "bean-to-bar," or chocolate made from scratch.
In "Mast Brothers: What Lies Beneath the Beards," DallasFood.org outlined how the pair initially used melted industrial chocolate, referred to as couverture. The series concluded by comparing the brothers to Milli Vanilli, the late 1980s R&B group caught lip-syncing.
In response, the Mast Brothers acknowledged using couverture in the past, but said they were open about the practice at the time. They say they haven't used remelted chocolate since 2009. The brothers say they always considered themselves "bean-to-bar" because they were making at least some chocolate that way from the start.
"In the first year or so, we would purchase couverture for all sorts of experiments, which is something we have always been honest and open about," Rick Mast told the AP. "That's gotten so out of proportion, that we were hiding it. We told chefs, we told competitors, we told colleagues, we told the press that we were using couverture for all sorts of different stuff we were working on. ... We have never, ever remelted chocolate and sold it as bean-to-bar chocolate."
The controversy has rocked the chocolate industry. We asked local chocolatiers and an industry insider to weigh in.
Katherine Clapner, owner of Dude Sweet Chocolate, sees the story as a cautionary tale with industrywide repercussions.
"It's not cool to say you're a bean-to-bar [producer] when you're not; and it's not cool to say you are the best in the world," she says.
Arrogance and lack of transparency aren't the only reasons Mast Brothers Chocolate Makers drew scrutiny, Clapner says. "It's the price tag. That article went after $10 chocolate bars." A headline stating that Mast Brothers "fooled the world into buying a $10 candy bar," as was seen on qz.com in mid-December, could cast suspicion on all expensive bars, she fears. "I'm getting ready to make a $10 bar -- but it's only because the ingredients are stupid-expensive."
Clapner says she wants to believe that Mast Brothers is now a legitimate bean-to-bar chocolate producer. Still, she worries that the scandal could affect lesser-known chocolatiers of integrity.
"We are all just trying to make good chocolate," she says. "They made a huge mistake."
'Anytime someone screws up -- and it's attached to fine chocolate -- it's bad for all of us.'
"It sucks. I liked their chocolate, liked their packaging; they built a cool, cult-status company," Clapner says. "But if their investors are pulling out, there's a nice little chocolate company in Dallas that could use the money."
Troy Easton, owner of Sublime Chocolate, wasn't entirely surprised by the Mast Brothers Chocolate revelations.
Easton had admired the company's marketing prowess. "They're the most well known of chocolate bars in the country; it's because of the way they presented themselves. But if they created a false impression, I'm not comfortable with that," he says.
Easton feels that there are better artisan chocolates that aren't as popular as Mast Brothers. "If I had to pick from Mast, Amano, Askinosie, Patric or Rogue chocolate to eat, Mast would be the last one I'd pick," he says. Easton doesn't think lesser-known chocolatiers will profit from Mast's fall from grace, though. "When someone more famous than all of us does this, it hurts us all," Easton says.
"My friend at the [coffee] roastery asked me, 'Doesn't everyone in the industry do things like that [fudge on the chocolate's origins]?' I said 'NO. If we say we are making something from Bolivian cocoa beans ... we are not mixing other chocolate in there. We try to be as open as we can.'"
Easton is a stickler for transparency. In 2013, Sublime became the Dallas area's first producer of a bean-to-bar chocolate line. To avoid misleading customers, "I stated on our website that I don't make my truffles and bonbons from the bean," he says.
That approach would have served Mast well. "In this day and age, with social media, you aren't getting away with anything," Easton says.
Sander Wolf, founder of dallaschocolate.org and the Dallas Chocolate Festival, says that he's "trying to stay positive" about the Mast Brothers' situation.
"This is the industry self-policing; I hope that it helps keep everybody honest. It's not perfect -- it's a young industry." Wolf points out that most craft chocolate makers have been in business for less than 10 years. "We don't have the kind of regulations that the wine industry has. But there are watchdogs out there that pay attention and care about [what] we pay for and eat."
Wolf says the annual Dallas Chocolate Festival draws dozens of craft chocolate makers and part of the festival's mission is educating the public. "We are showing people what it takes to make craft chocolate -- from farming practices to processing, and even production -- so that they will be able to appreciate it more."
Wolf says that consumers shouldn't be afraid to try other craft chocolate bars in the wake of the Mast Brothers. "We are pointing people to great chocolate makers who are doing the right things," he says.
"Dallaschocolate.org is selling a collection of artisan chocolate bars from people we trust. Let's keep everything positive."
By Tina Danze, Dallas freelance writer. The Associated Press contributed to this story.
