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Department of bubble bursting: Hershey’s chocolate is the lowest common denominator of chocolate. Too sweet by far, with an insipid flavor and beans of questionable provenance.
Scharffen Berger produces a limited range of super-high-quality chocolate; sourcing, roasting, and conching their own beans. The company was in the vanguard of the new wave of artisan chocolatiers.
Dagoba crafts enticingly whimsical chocolate bars while practicing “Full Circle Sustainability that blends quality, ecology, equity & community.”
But as Wired’s Chris Anderson reports, the apparent differences between these chocolatiers may be only skin deep, because, as he reports in his blog, a few years ago, Hershey bought Scharffen Berger. Last year it acquired Dagoba.
Anderson, whose “Long Tail” theory of business has captured the nation’s imagination, posits that while big companies used to buy smaller ones and fold the smaller company’s products into their own, these days consumers are looking for “the authenticity and quality of niche products.”
It is a testament to the inversion of power in the marketplace that for the influentials Hershey is trying to reach, an artisanal Berkeley chocolatier such as John Scharffenberger apparently has more brand power than America’s largest candy company.
The only catch? Hershey’s doesn’t really want people to notice that now, apparently, all chocolate, even artisan chocolate, is Hershey’s.
The new Hersey Cacao branding is still just Hersey chcolate. While they may have purchsed Dagoba and Sharffen Berger - its world away from these choclates. Hersey is smart to let them keep their quality and their following!
a) I think branding does affect taste, absolutely. Unless you're a professional taster, it's hard to cut through the mushugguna (sp?) of your impression of what nestle, foldgers, budweiser, etc is.
b) there is A LOT of consolidation going on in food/drink/restaurants these days. the "parent company" is often a big corporation, it's all in how they approach things. if they want an artisan...+READ
a) I think branding does affect taste, absolutely. Unless you're a professional taster, it's hard to cut through the mushugguna (sp?) of your impression of what nestle, foldgers, budweiser, etc is.
b) there is A LOT of consolidation going on in food/drink/restaurants these days. the "parent company" is often a big corporation, it's all in how they approach things. if they want an artisan brand, it's in their best interest to maintain the artisan quality. there are examples of this working, and I really hope Hersheys doesn't alter Dagoba or Sharffen Berger, two of the best american chocolates out there (imho). if they do "homoginize" the brands (accidentally or not), odds are that the customer will notice and switch to whatever the new artisan producer is in their area.
efficiency and quality don't always go together, but shared resources can buy you the time and money needed to keep turning out high quality. it's all about priority.-COLLAPSE
when i was in Perugia, Italy for the Chocolate Festival a couple years ago, I almost died when i saw a booth by Nestle, sponsoring Perugina chocolates. I think, in my head, I thought there was an immediate difference in the taste of Baci instantly after i saw the Nestle logo. How much does branding affect the taste?
Let's not overlook that Hershey's is just the *parent company* of brands it acquired, brands that will make it money if it maintains high quality. The aqcuisition doesn't automatically taint Dagoba or Sharffen Berger, and in fact there's evidence Hershey intends to toe the precedent-- it has come out with high-content chocolate (with nibs even) under its own brand.