They’re Making Bean-To-Bar Dark Chocolate

They’re Making Bean-To-Bar Dark Chocolate Captain’s Chocolate, of Neosho, Wis., produces and sells single-origin, bean-to-bar vegan dark chocolate from Costa Rica. The company name gives a hint to its origins. “My oldest brother Mark was a salmon fisherman in Alaska,” says Sarah Uhing, company owner. “He started spending his winters in Costa Rica to escape the cold and eventually bought remote land near indigenous tribal lands. He’s not someone to sit on a beach, so he got to know his neighbors.” Over time, Mark learned about the region’s struggles with chocolate production. Not only had local tribes lost a large portion of their cacao orchards to a tree fungus, but the local chocolate buyer was only paying 60% of the global commodity price. “It was insulting, frankly,” Uhing says. “The region produces some of the highest quality chocolate in the world, but the farmers were making almost nothing from it.” Eight years ago, Mark purchased 10,000 disease-resistant seedlings and worked with two tribes to plant and cultivate them. Today, all Captain’s Chocolate cacao comes from them. “We handle every part of the process ourselves,” Uhing says. “Initially, we intended to make the chocolate right in Costa Rica, but that proved impossible because of how fast chocolate can melt. Shipping would be a disaster.” Instead, the Costa Rican facility handles fermenting, roasting and drying, then ships the chocolate nibs (crushed cacao beans) to Wisconsin, where molding, grinding and tempering take place. “We make chocolate every single week in our licensed food processing kitchen,” Uhing says. The international nature of the business creates challenges. She shares that they try to ship a year’s supply of cacao nibs at a time to keep costs as low as possible. “Our shipping costs have gone from $7,000 to over $10,000 in the past few months. It’s been a headache.” “We’ve always tried to pay our farmers fair wages. Now, with tariffs and the scarcity of cacao trees, the global commodity price has tripled. And I don’t see that ending any time soon—replacement trees can only grow so fast.” Captain’s Chocolate seeks to combat this problem by bulking up their orchards with an additional 10,000 trees. Still, the positives make the business worth it. “My favorite part is getting the chance to feed real chocolate to people,” Uhing says. “Their eyes light up. They’ve never tasted the real stuff before.” All Captain’s Chocolate is vegan and gluten-free. “I have nothing against milk,” Uhing clarifies. “Milk chocolate is delicious, but it requires powdered milk. It’s an entirely different product, a different manufacturing process. Sourcing organic options at our scale would be extremely cost-prohibitive, maybe even impossible.” Instead, the chocolate contains just two ingredients, organic cacao beans and cane sugar. There are no stabilizing agents, Uhing shares that they’re only added by competitors to cut costs. “We take our time in the manufacturing process, which eliminates much of the bitterness people associate with dark chocolate. I hear it all the time from customers, ‘I never liked dark chocolate until I tasted yours!’” Captain’s Chocolate is working to launch a new product, cacao brew. The brew will be sold dry for home brewing, with tentative plans to bottle and distribute it premade at local convenience stores. The business also hopes to connect with farm-to-table restaurants. “We feel those are our people,” Uhing says. “They understand the importance of knowing where your food comes from. And there’s hardly any good options for chocolate like we’re offering it.” The chocolate is sold online, at the retail store in Neosho, and throughout various retailers in Wisconsin and Alaska. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Captain’s Chocolate, N2225 Cty. Rd. EE, Neosho, Wis. 53059 (ph 262-292-9256; captainschocolate@gmail.com; www.captainschocolate.com).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.