Meet the godfather behind the Bay Area’s plant-based chocolate scene (via eatersf)
Korson began his path to chocolate wizardry while traveling in Southeast Asia as a teenager; during his trip, he picked up an intestinal bug that ravaged his body for a few years before any medical professional could name the infection. He’d always been a fan of sweets — the classics: Snickers, Reese’s Pieces — since he was a kid growing up in San Francisco.
But in 2008, while he was working as a pastry chef at Cafe Gratitude in its Mission District commissary kitchen, he encountered the raw cacao pod for the first time. When the company put out a request for pastry chefs across their Bay Area locations to launch a chocolate arm of the company, Korson was the first and only person to respond. He and his former business partner, another chef at Gratitude, fell in love with chocolate. “I had this a-ha moment,” Korson says.
In the beginning, they sold the chocolate bars in little candy cases across Whole Foods’ bakery departments in Northern California; the company didn’t even have packaging then. Korson realized after a few years, though, that the placement in the bakery department didn’t make sense as a location for their candies. Using funds they garnered from their Whole Foods venture, they pooled money for packaging, and the rest is history.“The response has always been positive,” Korson says.
Korson cites the polarizing nature of labeling items “vegan” as a challenge the business has faced in its growth journey. The company has cycled through different language phases: using “vegan,” “plant-based,” and “dairy-free” at different points and for different reasons. Marketing-wise, Korson says, “plant-based” seems to be the most popular term these days., inspiring a near-avalanche of businesses to make plant-based spins on their best-selling products.
Looking at the chocolate market in the Bay, Korson sees dark chocolate continuing to grow. While Coracao is bringing sweeter chocolates into its lineup — it offered 80 percent or darker for most of its products historically — he notes that Dandelion Chocolate’s most popular bars have always been plant-based by default. The ultra-clean, minimalist candy bar is more popular than ever. “It really resonates with allergen-sensitive people and ethically conscious foodies,” Korson says.
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