Mast Brothers obscure the fact that they originally used remelted chocolate
qz.com
qz.com
1. http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind...
2. http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind...
3. http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind...
4. http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind...
Currently, all of our tools are used by beverage producers (beer, coffee, spirits) internally for quality and process optimization - it would be great to apply our models and create a subscription reporting and claim verification.
[0] www.Gastrograph.com
Edit: clarity and repetition.
Also, Any ideas? What would you like to see in a service like this?
For example, this could have helped in [1][2][3] where toxic food products were very mislabeled.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
If your references are wrong, or you miss out on the identification of a nuance, you haven't learned from the experience.
For example, individuals who say "I can't taste the difference between a $30 and $300 bottle of wine" are not _wrong_ - they just lack the formative experiences and education to appreciate the attributes that the more expensive product has.
Thus, if you decide that wine or beer or chocolate was of interest to you, it may be worthwhile to validate and trust your reference products.
TaaS: Taster as a service.
I got lots more, including a few choice ones I decided not to post :-)
I have this awful feeling it'll wind up like the whole organic beef fiasco. USDA certified organic is pretty meaningless, thanks to the lawsuits of large beef producers.
If you we're to use Mast Brothers chocolate as your "high quality" reference, you would be learning to identify the wrong attributes as indicators of quality.
Does that really matter though? Taste is highly subjective. Friends have given me what they consider very high quality, expensive chocolate, often complete with some fancy marketing blurb, and yet it doesn't taste any better to me than the more generic stuff I can get for far cheaper; but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Your second point is dead-on though. Only food obsessives would really notice or care that Mast Bros are frauds.
> Quality is a tricky word, but in terms of the appreciation of craft goods, your ability to identify the subtleties that make more higher quality products _better_ is a learned trait.
If your references are wrong, or you miss out on the identification of a nuance, you haven't learned from the experience or you've learned bad information.
For example, individuals who say "I can't taste the difference between a $30 and $300 bottle of wine" are not _wrong_ - they just lack the formative experiences and education to appreciate the attributes that the more expensive product has.
There is an entire world of great flavor out there that is very hard to perceive; for example, I don't eat any artificial flavorings, preservatives, or food coloring, and when actually doing tastings for work, there are lists of black list foods and cut-off times for a clean palate - we go to that extent because anything less would cause us to miss what makes that product unique and special - we would be entirely unable to perceive it, learn from it, and appreciate it.
If I can derive just as much pleasure from regular, mass-produced chocolate (perhaps because my taste buds aren't adjusted sufficiently), what exactly is the incentive to train my taste buds so that I have to spend more money on chocolate to gain the same pleasure?
More seriously, it's not always a choice - I got into it because a few products hit me and I said "WOW, s/coffee|chocolate|beer|wine|tea can taste like that?".
It's Pandora box and I'll never be satisfied knowing better is out there now!
Aging makes a much bigger different in Scotch than it does in Bourbon and Rye, neither of which are usually aged that long.
Also: the reason most artisanal vendors use MGP in the first place is that they can't wait 5-10 years to start selling product. Distillation isn't the hard part of selling whiskey; waiting for maturation is.
There's also the small-barrel effect that the "artisanal" supplies run into: you have business incentives to use small barrels to be more nimble in the market, but it turns out that small barrels also harm the maturation of the whiskey.
Just to be clear, I agree that I prefer whiskey aged in traditional sized barrels, but it's just a preference.
The whiskey isn't "harmed". I know several people with well trained palates that like or even prefer small barrel whiskey. Same for heat aged, press aged etc.
As an aside, some of the current rock-stars in the 'artisanal' non-distiller producer world make extensive use of MGP/LDI products - High West and Smooth Ambler come to mind. Templeton is an easy (and deserving) target, but I'd rather highlight the resellers that are blending MGP, and are doing amazing things with it. If you're ever in SF, I'd be happy to buy you a flight of whiskies sourced from MGP (sans Templeton) that all exhibit wildly different profiles; it may or may not change your views on MGP.
Wait wait what I meant to say was yes, next time I'm in SFBA (probably mid-Jan), you can definitely buy me whiskey.
Also, I'll wager you haven't heard of most of MGP's bottlers - MGP wants it that way. Look at Willett, KGB, et al.
Ps: Hard Water on the Embarcadero is fantastic. Hit me up.
Nothing at all against MGP. And major brands using MGP are much less problematic than the "artisanal" "distillers" who do nothing at all but slap a label on MGP.
And yes, what I had in mind with my original comment was mostly Willett, and the fantastic Rocky Mountain Rye 21yr.
http://recenteats.blogspot.com/p/the-complete-list-of-americ...
That would pretty much solve this issue. Well, the aging lag time portion of it, not the bootstrap-by-misleading portion, which looks to be financially motivated.
MGP is up front about this. Check out this StreetView picture of a tank in their tank farm.[4] The tank is clearly labeled "192 Proof Alcohol - 200,000 Gallon Capacity". That's usable either for powering flex-fuel cars, or as feedstock for booze makers. Check out their rail yard, with dozens of tank cars full of alcohol.[5] (The ones inside the security fence are probably full and ready to go; the ones outside are empties waiting to be loaded.) This is how it's made.
One of the big consumers of MGP ethanol is Frank-Lin Distillers' Products, which used to be in San Jose near the rail yard and is now in Fairfield, CA, where they are next door to a bottle plant and have their own railroad siding. Frank-Lin makes about two thousand different alcohol-based products.[3] Some they sell themselves; some are outsourced brands made for others. They used to make SKYY Vodka. SKYY was an entirely outsourced operation; the SKYY company itself just handled marketing and sales. (SKYY later sold out to Campari, which moved production to some Campari plant.)
Frank-Lin takes in ethanol and does some additional re-distillation. They have a water de-ionizing plant which takes in city water. They mix water, alcohol, and flavoring, then bottle, using a highly automated bottling line which can switch bottle types without a shutdown. Out of their plant come brandy, whiskey, vodka, rum, tequila, and even wine brands. "With an annual production capability of 15 million cases and on-premise tank storage capacity in excess of 1,500,000 gallons, Frank-Lin has the facilities and expertise to efficiently handle any project. Frank-Lin is a provider of contract bottling services for major national spirit brand owners."
Frank-Lin also handles distribution. They have an advantage in this - they're not a distiller. US law requires three independent tiers - distillers/brewers, distributors, and retailers. Usually, that means a distiller makes and bottles an end-user product and sells it to a distributor, who sells it to a retailer. But Frank-Lin is considered a distributor - they buy their alcohol already distilled. So they get to remove one layer of middlemen. Since they ship to almost every liquor store in the western US, it doesn't cost them much more to add brands.
That's how the booze industry really works. All else is hype.
[1] https://goo.gl/maps/dQifXrzdWMH2 [2] http://www.mgpingredients.com/alcohol/beverage/ [3] http://www.frank-lin.com/ [4] https://goo.gl/maps/c92moNiXDGx [5] https://goo.gl/maps/h5t3AeDhZ1U2
You are not incorrect about MGP, however you're speaking about a completely different side of the business.
1. Seagrams Seven Crown (most of 20th century)
2. Pernod Ricard (itself one of the biggest names in whiskey) briefly in the 2000s
3. LDI (even more briefly)
4. MGPI (very recently)
It's a serious whiskey operation. The rap on them isn't that they make shoddy product; it's that you're almost always overpaying for it, because high-end brands relabel it.
It's basically the polar opposite of the craft beer market.
1. Making consistent batches of high quality chocolate is really hard. And there are only a small number of companies that do that.
2. There absolutely nothing wrong with a company buying chocolate from one of the above and gussying it up by adding ingredients and remolding it. This is called a Chocolatier.
3. There is something wrong with claiming you are making chocolate from scratch. Because seriously you aren't
That is an impressively thorough and readable set of posts by Scott. I don't care that much about chocolate, but it's still a fascinating takedown.
I'm not into chocolate that much myself, but I might get some single origin bars for the choco-holics around me. I suspect they might find the lower sugar / milk content off-putting...
Side note: Have we at a meta level concluded that self-identified "small batch" and "artisanal" products sold at farmers markets in hipsterish packaging are very highly correlated with "young people that don't really know what they are doing (are relatively inexperienced), but are good at marketing and charging a high price"?
You can see this in wine tasting allot of the big name wines expensive wines do not score well in blind wine tastings however in non blind tastings when people are sold on the story they score remarkably well.
When you spend 200$ on a bottle of wine, 15$ on a bar of chocolate and 20$ on 8 oz. of coffee beans you'll be damn sure to like them even if they are nothing but average at best.
There is a reason why every "artisan" product comes with a nifty far fetched story tied to it as that's what you are buying at the end.
Right...?
<anecdote> A few years ago I sent one of the first bottles of wine I ever made (a Barolo, still quite young) to a friend of mine with a comment to the effect that "it's not bad, but it has an aftertaste of asphalt. Probably needs to be aged more."
He replied with a link to a review of an expensive Barolo that indicated "hints of tar." But my major takeaway from that review was how it sounded exactly like the high-end audio reviews I used to read." Substitute the word "amplifier" for "wine" and you'd never know the difference. </anecdote>
BTW: I kept a few bottles of that batch and after five years, it was delicious. Five years was all the willpower I had :-(
[1]: http://www.caltech.edu/news/wine-study-shows-price-influence...
Your beliefs about what you consume can affect your taste and what pleasure you draw from consumption. Since the belief is part of what causes your positive experiences, why would you risk loosing that belief by asking people about things that may destroy it? Or is it already destroyed, those chocolates no longer taste that good, and you are hoping to regain the belief?
If latter is the case then, yes, I can assure you with my whole authority and complete independence from Dandelion in SF that their chocolate is the real deal.
Also while I'm sure that I am blind to lots of things as a consumer, I definitely still enjoy products with sketchy marketing but whose quality I like (Bulleit Rye is a great example).
Making chocolate in small batches doesn't have anything to do directly with making a better chocolate bar.
There are plenty of very large scale chocolate manufacturers that produce premium products and they have a much better process of ensuring the consistency and quality of their products than a small batch manufacturer, unlike small boutiques they also have the resources and the science to be able to tailor the taste to specific pallets much more consistently.
Going to a chocolate boutique however and buying expensive bars is an experience on it's own which most likely has just as much impact on the final tasting experience as the manufacturing process it self.
I agree with most of your points (both in this post and more generally elsewhere on the site), and even acknowledge that you might be right if you define "directly" in a particular way. But I'm almost certain you haven't made your own small-batch chocolate, and would guess you haven't personally compared products from the producers being discussed.
You are right that small batch doesn't matter much, but timing is crucial. Freshly made chocolate has a lot of volatile flavors that dissipate quickly. Large producers age their product to produce a consistent (and sometimes excellent) product. Some small producers achieve a much faster turn-around from roasting to consumption.
I've both made chocolate and done a lot of comparison, and I've never tasted a mass produced chocolate where the taste is comparable to a fresh batch made by an amateur using quality ingredients. I suppose that theoretically it could be done, but in practice, to my taste, freshness has always had the flavor advantage.
My usual comparison would be coffee: freshly roasted and freshly brewed coffee tastes significantly different than freeze dried. Both have their place, but you should doubt the taste of anyone who says there is no significant difference. Fresh versus canned tomatoes is another example I've considered. There are some excellent canned tomatoes, and some lousy fresh tomatoes, but no canned tomato is a decent substitute for an excellent fresh tomato.
It certainly seems to happen a lot in software; I cannot imagine it's any different in chocolate or coffee or anything else.
Unfortunately, because they buy and process relatively small batches of beans you might not be able to get more of a bar you really enjoy. Even if you see one with the same origin as a bar you've had before it might not be exactly the same since different batches may use different roasting parameters.
That being said, the PR coming out of Mast Brothers is unbelievably arrogant and off-putting. As a chocolate lover, I was excited to read their cookbook when I saw it at the bookstore, but I closed it after reading a few pages. The self-promotion and self-centered attitude was absolutely disgusting, considering that their product is only average among their peers. Producing the best chocolate requires deep respect for the bean as well as for the tastes of the consumer, and my impression is that the quality of their product will continue to be limited by their attitude.
In the big picture, Mast Brothers is still better than 99% of the chocolate out there, so I'll still buy it and enjoy from time to time.
I think it's important to point out that they are still much better than most, though. It's common to see people attack the worst of the premium brands while forgetting that they are still a lot better than most of the cheap alternatives, like when lovers of organic food complain about Whole Foods. In the big picture, Mast Brothers is still the good guys when compared to, say, Nestle.
I'd love to see how well Mast would do in blind tests against the Swiss, Belgians, Germans and French. My thinking is they'd get squashed like a grape.
Mast is "good" if your benchmark is Dove or Hershey's. It's absolutely not $10 good.
However, to each his or her own. Eat what you like! However, that being said, the Mast bros seem like such pretentious pr__ks that I'd rather just not eat chocolate than give them the money.
Perhaps this is another thing that millennials feel they've invented.
At the end of the day, most people aren't capable of tasting the difference anyways. It takes a while to develop the palate required to discern great from good. Most people eat their daily food quickly and don't really pay attention to the flavours of the ingredients. They just want something salty, sweet, crispy and fatty. That sounds condescending but its true and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Lots of people let the radio or pitchfork tell them what music to listen to and don't care enough to expend the time refining their tastes. Their enjoyment of music is no less valid or real than anyone else's.
Yes, I understand that there are many artists that are masters of their craft and deserve the respect and their prices. But there is also lots of crap that people pay good money for that tastes awful by any reasonable standard. A place near me makes these giant cookies that look awesome, but at first bite you can tell they're made with shortening, not butter. Sorry, but not worth the $3 price.
But any idiot with $10 can go to the store, buy the ingredients and make a couple dozen infinitely better tasting cookies by following the recipe on a bag of Toll House chocolate chips.
I think at the heart of it, what really bothers me is that because so few people grow up cooking anymore, we've lost touch with how easy it is to make good tasting food.
Rant off.
The chocolate while tasty is remarkably gritty. The bars are decent, but where they do best is the chocolate covered nuts. They're doing well and their chocolate is everywhere. I thought it was pricey, but not so much anymore.
They have a video showing some production (including fitting a stone grinder to modern equipment which is a decent hack)
The comments surrounding Mast Brothers are making me feel less like my tastes are wrong. Maybe bean-to-bar small-batch artisanal chocolate just isn't that good of an idea.
And they at least do make it.
My guess is there's a very distinct fruity aftertaste to anything past 65% or so. It's unavoidable when the percentage of cacao is that high. Moreover, it looks as if they source beans from different geographic areas for certain bars, so they should all have a distinct taste even someone whose only ever eaten Hershey's bars can point out.
First, they no longer used remelted chocolate.
Second, Mast Brothers are obviously tapping into the startup/hipster culture and selling chocolate to people who want to seem crafty and artisanal but don't care enough to find out the origins.
Third, if you're paying $10 for chocolate and you aren't sure of it's origin (like when they didn't include ingredients) you deserve what you get.
Lots of companies don't tell you the whole story. While I personally think honesty and integrity are hugely important the startup culture doesn't seem to value it more than hockey stick growth charts.
They sound like genius trolls.
Yeah, I know this is the original definition of a troll but it's the only one as far as I am concerned.
http://mastbrothers.com/pages/press
Missing, however, is the typical comments about defending themselves against what would be libelous claims.
My wife an I attempted to start an olive oil company last year selling French extra virgin oil we make at our friend's olive farm in Provence.. If you think the artisanal chocolate industry is full of deception and lies.. allow me to introduce to you the wonderful world of olive oil. Our production cost for 1 liter was almost double the retail cost of so-called high-end "Italian" extra virgin olive oil you'd buy at Whole Foods -- which basically means it is nearly impossible to source actual, 100% extra virgin olive oil at the prices they're being sold for at the stores, there are some exceptions -- a few oils out there are actually the real deal. But a high percentage of grocery store oils aren't what they claim to be (even at Whole Foods-type stores.)
Through a quirk of Italian law, oil that is bottled in Italy can be labeled "100% Italian" -- so there is a huge amount of inferior oils being passed off as both Italian and Extra Virgin and being priced accordingly, despite it being nearly impossible to wholesale Italian-grown, Italian made extra virgins at the price they're selling it for. That's even accounting for economies of scale.
My favorite label-scam is when I see "First Cold Pressed." Absolutely zero oil you buy at grocery stores is ever cold pressed. Pressing actually creates inferior oils. Olive oils are extracted in large centrifuges. They haven't been "pressed" in probably a generation, but "First Cold Centrifuging" doesn't sound as "artisanal." Producers know good and well they aren't pressing anything, yet they (correctly) figure that that particular wording is going to attract a customer who imagines images of an old dude dumping fresh olives still moist with dew into a large, wooden handled press to squeeze out oil just for them. Basically your stereotypical hipster-type that wants to opine about the importance of "hand" crafting. I know probably a dozen olive oil producers here in Provence and every single one of them hand-craft their oils using state of the art, stainless steel equipment in spotless production facilities. Some of this facilities are located in a converted barn, but that idyllic image of the "craftsman" using "traditional" methods is just a myth. Though, playing off of those ignorant imaginings means that companies, using the right wording, can charge champagne prices for malt liquor.
I suppose if we just took Tunisia or Turkish oils, bottled them as French oils, put a ultra-premium price on it -- and grew some beards and distributed out of Brooklyn, we might have been more successful.
My point is that the artisanal and premium food business is rife with deception. If anyone is interested in the olive oil industry this book is exceptionally good: http://www.truthinoliveoil.com/extra-virginity
I've heard that the best way to understand the olive oil business is to consider the fact (needs citation) that Italy exports twice as much oil as it produces.
Did your business work out? What happened? We bought a very nice AOC olive oil from Aix-en-Provence once.
But, in the end, it's just a hard grind of a business. Love the oils, don't love competing with companies selling oil by the tanker truck. It was also a tough sell to the consumer because convincing the average grocery store shopper to pay almost triple the cost for a product that meets a need they don't really know they have.. that's a tough one.
As a side note.. I do highly recommend California olive oils (ones that are labeled as such..) they have a rather strict certification process, so if it's in California and it's labeled as such, you're almost certainly getting the real deal. I'm definitely partial top Provençal, Corsican and Tuscan oils, but there are definitely some great ones out there.
I admit I buy it for two reasons: it's cheap (I use a lot of olive oil) and is marked with the harvest date. It is sold as Italian oil (from Tuscany, I believe). Is it?
You know who is mad? The hipsters who couldn't tell the difference.
I'm not a fan of dishonest advertising. But that conclusion seems a bizarre place to end up in.
Caveat emptor, yes. But there's a responsibility to be truthful in your advertising as well.
Don't confuse hustling with dishonesty and poor ethics.
The whole claim seems to rest on the meaning of "bean to bar". OK, fine.
People are mad that these guys are making money executing good marketing and this is nothing but a hit piece.
This does not include lying to your customers.
Then don't excuse them. And try to avoid "morals-optional people" -- not just in business, but in life in general.
But thank you very much for putting words in my mouth.
You're absolutely right -- liars and fraudsters exist in start-up land. They should be avoided.
Are they still doing it? No. No one was harmed, they proved the product is needed where the product is "chocolate that looks like it was produced by artisans." Yeah, there is a market for people who want to feel as if they are buying superior products when they are not necessarily doing so. c.f. the whole bottled water industry.
There are tons of examples of products where you give the impression of a huge, quality team behind it that makes you feel superior for buying but it's a couple of dudes in a basement somewhere who make you feel good for buying.
Let's not get too carried away by making moral judgments.
Who knows? One thing about liars: They lie.
> No one was harmed...
No one died, sure. But people purchased a product that was not what was advertised. And an unfair marketplace was created in which one player could reap the rewards while not having the expense of actually acquiring the expertise or investing in the actual product. I'd prefer to excise fraudulent players from the marketplace just so those who are actually investing in innovation and higher-quality products can reap the rewards. Chocolate is a small and whimsical thing, but it doesn't matter: It's an industry. People make their livings in it. People work hard at it. Fraudsters should be exposed. Fraud should not be considered a normal way of doing business.
> people who want to feel as if they are buying superior products > makes you feel superior for buying
Get off your condescending horse.
It is boring when it's not happening to you and it doesn't involve a product or service you care much about. And so it's easy to be dismissive. I don't honestly give a hot flip what you think about this particular topic. But hopefully someone is treating this seriously. As I hope someone takes it seriously when it impacts something you do care about. And I really hope that being fraudulent doesn't become the expected norm for start-ups in any industry...