I’m in the foyer here at Guittard Chocolate in Burlingame, near San Francisco. Clark Guittard gave me a private tour of the production facility, which I can only describe as “complex and very large.”
I feel fortunate to have visited many chocolate factories over the years, from the substantial, such as Guittard or Valrhona, to smaller places like Jouvay in Grenada and Forteza in Puerto Rico, to tiny shops in Ecuador and Guatemala. Each takes its own approach to chocolate and each does beautiful work.
I’m visiting in my capacity as President of Heirloom Cacao Preservation (HCP). Guittard processes the anonymized cacao submissions we receive from farmers. The chocolate they make will be sent to an international tasting panel for flavor evaluation, then will be genotyped by the USDA. Only then will it be designated as “Heirloom cacao.” It’s an exhaustive two year process, but results in some of the most spectacular chocolate you’ll taste.
@guittardchocolate @heirloomcacao