Well, I have vegan customers who need certified organic and certified fair trade. As you know, for my bars, I use fair trade and organic chocolate but because I get it from small producers, they are not certified.
So, I had to search for an organic and fair trade certified chocolate. I turned to Dagoba. However, when I got in my chocolate it said that it may contain traces of milk protein. What? How? Huh? I wasted my money.
I called up the people at
Hershey/Dagoba megaplex, yes, ouch,
they were SOLD to Hershey, but they use their equipment, the same equipment, to process their milk chocolate as well as nuts etc. They told me that they were actually a small company, not very big, and that they didn't have the money to have two separate lines. I mean who are they talking about? The old Dagoba or Hershey? Come on people. Ask you chocolate daddy for another line of equipment. Scharffen Berger down and now Dagoba. Sun of a pod!
Well, I decided to go to
Sweet Earth, whose chocolate flavor profile is even stranger than El Rey. Fruity but very good. So, now I have vegan bars. Hurrah.
In the future, I'm blending several of their chocolates to make a new flavor profile. I think I have to do it to get the right flavor for my bars. Shhhh! It's a secret.
I also want to note that all my bar chocolate is organic and fair trade. But only the vegan bars have not a trace of milk or other animal BY products. Obviously, none of the bars has animal product in it.
You can also order the other chocolates as vegan if you wish. We have the chocolate we can make vegan versions of most of the chocolates. Only the caramels are impossible to make vegan. Soy caramels? I wonder... ;-)
Labels: American Chocolate, vegan chocolate
