Tuesday, December 2, 2014

"Why Does This Bar of Chocolate Cost $260?"

During the summer of 1987 money was flowing so freely that I remember thinking while hiding out at some-party-or-other that 'this must be what the summer of 1929 felt like'.

I don't have that feeling yet but a few more stories like this and I might.

From Modern Farmer:

How do you justify spending $260 on 50 grams of chocolate?
For starters, the founders of To’ak chocolate suggest splitting it 12 ways, so you get just over four grams for a more modest $21.66.

For high-end foodies who shell out big bucks for a few ounces of a rare wine or bourbon, To’ak founder Jerry Toth hopes the idea of dark chocolate tastings will be a compelling sell. Within five years, “dark chocolate tasting will be something that people in the US do,” he predicts.

Fewer than 200 of the 574 Ecuador-sourced bars produced in his first batch have sold so far, according to a running count on the To’ak chocolate website.

But Toth, a former Wall Street investment banker who cashed out in ’02 for a surfing trip that turned into a business venture, says he isn’t worried. He predicts that in 10 years, the high-end chocolate scene will boom to the point that he worries “it’ll be a saturated market.”...MORE
...His 50-ounce bars  come in a wooden box with a serial number, informational guide and Spanish elm tasting tweezers... 
Possible precursors:
"Ye Olde Artisanal Stock Pickery & Son" (or "Equity investing as a luxury good") 
Artisanal Pencil Sharpener Considers Career Change 
The Future Will be Artisanal Everything (HAIN; AHFP)
I'm in the Wrong Business Part 625: "$20 for a bottle of water? Your water sommelier will bring the menu right away" 
The World is Going Artisanal-- Caffeine: The Magazine
Testing Small-batch Artisanal Portfolio Construction With Cliff Asness and Grantham, Mayo's James Montier
"The Economics of Artisanal Chocolate" (Here at Zero-bound Chocolates, We Believe...)

And so many posts on chocolate that it's easier to just do the search blog thing:
site:climateerinvest.blogspot.com chocolate