Since 2005, Dany Marquis has been the head of his coffee-roasting company, Brûlerie du Quai, located in Quebec’s Baie-des-Chaleurs. Through all those years, he has tried as much as possible to buy directly and maintain good long-term relationships with the coffee producers. For his newer bean-to-bar chocolate company, Chaleur B, he has reproduced that same model of direct trade. Many of his bars highlight origins that come out of the ordinary like Nicaragua, Fiji and Brazil. The collection of Chaleur B’s products is vast and contains both simple origins, milk chocolates, white chocolates and bars with inclusions.
Chocosol
Toronto-based chocolate maker, Chocosol, is a socially minded business that is involved as much in their community as with the cocoa producers in Mexico and Dominican Republic. Micheal Sacco founded Chocosol in Mexico in 2004. Since then, along with chocolate making, Chocosol has a rooftop garden on their shop and has developed the Tortilla Project with corn producers in Southern Ontario. What makes Chocosol’s bars so unique is that they are created using a Mexican stone-ground technique, lending a less refined mouthfeel to the chocolate: we can actually feel the sugar grains and very small pieces of cocoa beans that are not entirely ground. It is a chocolate with a bit of a crunch, offering a completely different experience!
East Van Roasters
The founder of East Van Roasters, Shelley Bolton, follows a social and ethical pursuit. She is as close to the cacao producers as she is to her employees. Actually, her business, planted in the heart of a low-income neighbourhood in Vancouver, hires women recovering from addiction, which eases their reintegration into society. Their chocolate highlights three single origins, such as Pangoa (Peru), Madagascar and Dominican Republic, as well as some creative flavoured seasonal bars.
Chocolatrie Eau de Rose
The founder of Eau de Rose, Karine Drolet, has been working with chocolate for several years making bonbons and truffles. After a stage at Madre Chocolate in Hawaii in 2015, Karine started working with cocoa beans to create her own bean-to-bar chocolate. She uses cocoa beans from two specific regions of Colombia : Tumaco and Aurauca.
Hummingbird Chocolate Maker
Erica and Drew Gilmour travelled the globe before starting their chocolate business, Hummingbird Chocolate. It was on an international aid mission that they decided to dedicate their lives to chocolate and cocoa in the hopes to make a difference in the lives of cocoa producers. Throughout the years, they’ve developed both single origin bars and several chocolates with daring inclusions, like Honey Lavender and PB & Joy (a chocolate where roasted peanuts are ground with the cocoa beans). Hummingbird Chocolate’s bars have won many awards several years in a row at the International Chocolate Awards and the Academy of Chocolate Awards.
Chocolat Monarque
Daniel Haran experimented with cocoa beans in his kitchen for several years before starting his business, Chocolats Monarque, in 2015. His approach as a bean-to-bar chocolate maker is more scientific than artistic. One of Daniel’s objectives is to make a chocolate that speaks to several tastes, without leaving anyone indifferent! Chocolat Monarque’s collection is in constant evolution because Daniel likes to explore flavour combinations, new techniques and ways to work with cocoa beans. Monarque workshop is in the Mile End, in Montreal.
Palette de Bine
Christine Blais, founder of Palette de Bine, transitioned from architecture to bean-to-bar chocolate in 2014. She makes her chocolate in a workshop in Mont-Tremblant, in the mountains and forest of Quebec. It’s no surprise that Christine works chocolate with an aesthetic linked to architecture and materials like wood. Her mould represents a plank of wood. She makes a dark chocolate with two ingredients (cocoa beans from several origins and sugar), as well as designed surprising flavoured bars, for example one using grinded balsam fir. She has recently won several awards at the International Chocolate Awards and the Academy of Chocolate Awards.
Sirene
Before starting Sirene Chocolate in 2013, Taylor Kennedy travelled around the world as a photo journalist for the National Geographic Society. It’s during those trips to the four corners of the globe that he became conscious of the link between agriculture and a need for ethical foods. Taylor tries to work as directly as possible with the cocoa producers with the goal of making a difference in their lives. He also carefully selects the beans that he uses for his chocolates. To aid in comparing the cocoa origins, some of Sirene’s packages contain two bars, each crafted with cocoa beans from two different countries.
Soma
Soma is Cynthia and David, a couple with boundless imagination, always ready to experiment with flavours, textures and techniques. Soma was founded in 2013 in Toronto and was a pioneer in the bean-to-bar chocolate movement in North America. They began at a time when only a handful of people were attempting to make chocolate. Cynthia and David are constantly trying to innovate and add to their line of chocolate bars, experimenting with different origins and roasting, ageing and conching techniques. One of their star products is the Old School, a bar that was ground in Soma’s vintage melangeur, creating a cookie-like texture. Soma is awarded several prizes every year from the International Chocolate Awards and Academy of Chocolate.
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