Hi friends,
You know what? I adore this gorgeous little mountain town and our beautiful food scene. Like many others, I am a transplant to Asheville. I made my way to the Blue Ridge Mountains from Costa Rica in 2006 to start a chocolate company and raise kids, and haven’t looked back. Asheville is the kind of place with an unstoppable creative force. People come here to build community, to create and share their gifts with the world. And now we want to share with you in a very meaningful way. I am thrilled to be a part of a volunteer board of inspiring people who are building a new culinary festival to celebrate Asheville, through meaningful events, immersive experiences, and charitable programs that connect people to the many hands involved in setting our creative table. From brewer to baker, potter to pickler, maker to mixologist, farmer to florist, cheesemonger to chocolate maker, this event will shine a light on the diverse humans bringing beauty to this corner of Appalachia. Grand tasting events, chef demonstrations, and hands-on experiences will connect participants to the stories behind Asheville's creative, inclusive approach to preparing and sharing meals. I. Can’t. Wait.
We’re calling it Chow Chow.
Chow Chow, a pickled relish popular in southern Appalachia, is a resourceful condiment whose ingredients vary from family to family and region to region. Often prepared in the warmer months, a mix of vegetables is chopped, combined and preserved. By the time cold weather hits, all of the ingredients have come together to create something better than the sum of its parts, adding a pop of flavor to the long winter vegetable season and just about anything else on the table. Universally, chow can mean ‘to eat’—joyfully, with abandon and in good company. The humble condiment captures the spirit of this new festival.
Cacao, Confections, & Cocktails
Do you love confections and cocktails? Chocolate and cheese? Bubbles and bonbons? Then we’ve created the event for you. I am thrilled to curate and host an event called Cacao, Confections, and Cocktails at our Chocolate Factory and Cafe in the RAMP Studios. It is going to be spectacular. We are fortunate to feature amazing local and national talent, from award-winning pastry chefs, to star mixologists, passionate wine importers and a stellar coffee roaster, all working together to create a tailored experience of desserts, thoughtfully paired with craft beverages. We’ll be serenaded by live jazz music from Jason Moore (who is not only a locally loved performing artist, but also my kid’s saxophone teacher). We’ll have a beautiful local cheese and charcuterie spread to balance out the sweets. Plus, you’ll get a guided walkthrough of a real chocolate factory, with access to our talented team of chocolate professionals. We can’t wait to teach you about cacao, show you our spot, and feed you lots of chocolate. Tickets are limited. Secure your spot here.
Won’t you join me in celebrating Asheville’s food scene? Chow Chow’s website will guide you through all the amazing experiences to choose from.
I hope to see you the weekend of September 13 - 15!
In gratitude,
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Hi friends,
Can we be real a sec? Mothering ain’t easy. It can be beautiful and messy; frustrating and deeply fulfilling; unpredictable and humbling. My boys are now 12 and 14 - yep, two middle schoolers. When my kids were babies, people would always say, “this time is precious! It will be over soon!” And while they’re not wrong, my experience has been that parenting keeps getting cooler as they grow older. You think it’s cool watching someone learn to talk or crawl or get teeth? (I mean, it is.) Imagine watching them learn to master the baritone sax, or get on the A honor roll for the first time, or navigate their first romantic relationship. It’s a damn miracle to watch them grow up, and it honestly just keeps getting better. Right now, I’m insanely grateful that they still ask me to tuck them in every night.
Sometimes I feel like an awesome mom, other times... not so much. Like when I yell at my kid because I’m struggling with a situation, or when I wake everyone up too late to catch the school bus, or let Max watch Fortnite for hours when he really should be playing outside. It’s a really hard job, y’all. We’re conditioned to think we can be superheroes with the perfect school lunch, packed activity schedule, and clean socks every day. But we’re just humans, doing our best, ok? What do you say we give each other a break this Mother’s Day.
I learned a new word recently from the world’s best Uber driver (who lives in Chicago and also taught me about Whirlyball and the big four thrash metal bands: Megadeath, Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer, in case you’re wondering). The word is storge. The Ancient Greek philosophers believed in four types of love: Eros, the romantic kind; Agape, the love between human and their God; Philia, or “brotherly”/friendship-based love; and finally Storge. Storge is the kind of instinctual and emotive love felt between parents and their kids. From the moment my kids came into my life, the love I felt was transformational and my life seemed to make more sense. I can’t help but love them, even when they test the limits via tantrums, arguments, or straight up defiance. It’s comforting to rely on this kind of consistent love - for them and for me. Storge is not fleeting; it is not impermanent. It is instantaneous and intensifies over time. It is, for me, love at its most pure.
I know mom/kid relationships can be challenging, broken or non-existent. If some of you no longer have your mom (or your kid), or don’t have a relationship with them, I see you. If you have kids and you feel like you’re about to lose it, I see you. If you feel like you can’t devote as much time to your kiddos as you want to because of work or life, I see you (I am you).
If you think chocolate might help (it certainly can’t hurt), maybe you want to try a limited edition cocktail collection? Or my personal favorite, a box of peanut butter tumblers? They always make it better for me. A couple pieces in, you might realize, whatever your messy and beautiful situation, that everything is going to be ok.
Big love to all the mamas and nurturers out there. I love you.
In gratitude,
Co-founder/CEO/Mom/Human
p.s. The challenge of motherhood can start even before the kid enters the earthly realm. I talked a bit about some challenges I had in my first pregnancy in this talk at Creative Mornings Asheville, in case you want to really get to know me and my humanity (Listen, my dad even said he learned things about me after watching!).
What is your position and how long have you worked for French Broad Chocolates?
I’m the Chocolatier Shift Lead. I’ve been working in our confections department for almost a year, but started with the company a year and a half ago, as a barista in the Lounge.
How did you get started in chocolate?
It’s my dream job! I remember watching Chocolat when I was in my early teens, and thinking that it would be so cool to make chocolate. I loved the scenes where she opens up her shop, and the closeups of how she makes the confections. The film goes really in-depth into the chocolate making process and it was so inspiring, but I never thought it would be possible. I had pastry experience and I was working in the Lounge as a barista, but I had never worked with chocolate. When the opportunity came up to move to the Confections department, I jumped at it!
Why do you like working here?
I love being creative, getting my hands into the chocolate, exploring new flavors and products. Being involved in the whole process from start to finish. I was super excited about the idea of peppermint bark, I made a sample and shared it with Jael and we started developing it.
I really love the Confections team. We’re a really small team, there are only 4 of us working full-time, and we make a lot of product. It’s really important to know that we have each other’s backs.
It’s so cool to see how much we source locally. Getting in giant batches of berries from local farmers in the summer, and freezing them to use all year long is amazing, and it’s awesome to know that we’re supporting the community that supports us.
My palate has really developed a lot over the last year. When I taste chocolate from all over the world, I can taste the flavors of the different regions from where it comes. Our Nicaragua 68% is my favorite. We use it in our Orange, Olive Oil and Fennel truffles, and we use our Amazonas 65% (from Peru) in our Fresh Raspberry and Strawberry Balsamic Truffles... the cacao brings out the flavors of the different ingredients we use, and vice versa. It’s so awesome to be able to taste the difference.
What are you currently reading/listening to?
I have Lorde and Of Monsters And Men on a calming fun playlist that I listen to a lot at work. I’m also reading a book called The Everything Box. It’s about an angel that was supposed to destroy everyone in the world, but he messed up and lost the doomsday box, so it didn’t happen. The book kindof goes back and forth between our time, but there are werewolves and vampires too! I’m also reading a series called The Secret Of Spellshadow Manor it’s kind of like a dark Harry Potter. I like series that have a lot of books, I’ll read them but also listen to them while i’m working so I get really really into them.
What else are you into?
I love photography and anything artsy. I love tattoos - I get a lot from Red Rabbit Tattoo. Bianca is my artist. I have a cupcake tattoo from my days as a baker, but I really want to get a tattoo of the chemical symbol for chocolate… it’s on my list!
What is your go-to form of self care?
I’ve been meditating lately. I’ve never done it before but I really like it. I also have a sign on my wall that has prompts like “what are three things you like about yourself” and I write responses on sticky notes. The trampoline park is really fun too!
What’s your favorite place to go in Asheville?
I’ve really been missing Doc Cheys, it was one of my all-time favorite spots. These days, I go to Dobra tea a lot, and Karen Donatelli’s bakery and Taco Billy. Oh! and Battery Park Book Exchange. That’s my self care too!
What is your favorite French Broad Chocolates treat?
The Vanilla Cake with Maple and Smoked Salt. That salt. That maple syrup. It’s definitely up there. Our Milk and Cookies ice cream.... I love our Strawberry Balsamic truffle too! The Cosmic Love Potion truffle (part of our seasonal Aphrodisiac Collection is soooo good. I like how you can taste all the different herbs, and the honey pulls all the flavors together. And it’s really cute, it has a rose petal on top!
What are you most excited about right now?
It’s been a week of fresh starts. I’m excited about the future. I’m thinking of planning a birthday trip to Iceland and Ireland too… the scenery is breathtaking, being in a completely different culture…and waterfalls and sheep!
]]>Little luxuries for all your favorite humans.
We've put together a few of our favorite things in curated gift bundles to make your holiday shopping a bit simpler.
P.S. Order by Monday, December 18 for Christmas Delivery!
P.P.S. $6 flat-rate shipping every day. Because we love you.
Chocolate + Coffee = BFF!
We've curated a coffee-centric bundle that includes:
4oz. Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans
4oz. Coffee Toffee with Dark Chocolate & Cacao Nibs
Milk + Chocolate 43% Bar (pairs great with coffee!)
8oz Mountain Air Roasting Coffee, freshly roasted right here in Asheville!
12oz MIIR insulated tumbler with travel lid
All for $72.50 (Save $4.50!)
A little sweet, a little salty, this perfectly balanced bundle includes:
6pc Dark Chocolate Salted Caramels
All for $40 (Save $2.50!)
A tower of truffles!
24 Piece Custom Collection thoughtfully curated by our crew
12 Piece Signature Collection
6 Piece Caramel Collection
All for $100 (Save $2.50!)
The Single-Origin Trio Bundle!
Three of our single-origin bars handpicked for you by our crew.
All for $27 (Save $1.50!)
Let's face it, less time battling the crowds = more time getting festive and cozy with all your favorite humans. We've put together a little gift guide to help you swiftly pick out the perfect prezzies, whether from our website or in-store, so you can get serious about getting festive! We're even opening the Boutique at 9:00am from today 'til Christmas Eve so you can shop for your loved ones before downtown gets too crowded, and offering $6 flat-rate shipping on our website to anywhere in the lower 48 (be sure to order by Monday, December 18 for Christmas delivery!).
From December 7-24, our Chocolate Boutique (right next door to the Chocolate Lounge on Pack Square) will open at 9am! Duck in out of the cold for a coffee or hot chocolate and peruse our shelves stocked with books, mugs, our full line of handcrafted confections and our Chocolate Bar Library!
xoxoxo
French Broad Chocolates
Cozy and celebratory, these confections draw upon the traditional aromas and flavors that fill our homes as we turn inward for the winter: Peppermint, Eggnog, Champagne, Pecan Pie, Gingerbread and Cranberry. All handcrafted with the finest ingredients (including our bean-to-bar chocolate!)
New For Holiday 2017! A dark chocolate layer is topped with a peppermint white chocolate layer swirled with naturally colored cacao butter and studded with housemade peppermint candy. Packaged in a festive tin, ready for gifting!
From our 43% Milk Chocolate to our single-origin bars from Guatemala, Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Brazil, to our inclusion bars that blend in a bit of heritage malt, coffee or sea salt (all sourced from like-minded friends closeby), to our 100% Cacao bar, we've got something for every palate. And the boxes are so gosh darn pretty they don't even need to be wrapped. Sweet!
Coffee + Chocolate = BFFs
Cacao and coffee are the ultimate compadres; two seeds in a pod. They hail from a common latitude (though cacao prefers lower altitudes). Their post-agricultural processes are uncannily similar: both are seeds of a tropical fruit, fermented, dried at origin, and carefully roasted to bring out their unique flavor profiles. They're both stimulating, and have made an indelible impression on our world culture.
We're perpetually crushing so hard on coffee that we've worked it into several of our offerings: our three-ingredient 70% Coffee bar and our Coffee Toffee with Dark Chocolate & Cacao Nibs both feature beans from Mountain Air Roasting and our Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans are made with beans from Pennycup Coffee Co. - Both headquartered right here in Asheville!
If you stop by the Boutique, you can also pick up a bag of Mountain Air Roasting beans and an insulated travel mug made by fellow B Corporation Miir!
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We are feeling sentimental today. 'Tis the season for gratitude and that's what we're all about. (It's literally in our company mission).
French Broad Chocolate Lounge has been serving you for nearly ten years, and we still feel and appreciate all of your grace and support. We appreciate you showing up, treating yourself, and sending love to your friends through chocolate. Thank you for making us an Asheville tradition, somewhere you always bring visiting friends and family. We’re grateful for the thoughts and feedback you share - when we do something great, but also when we need to step up and do better. Communication from our community helps us grow and improve, and we appreciate the generosity with your limited time.
As a small token of our gratitude, we are sharing this simple recipe that we are making for our family feast, because we all need at least one simple recipe on Thanksgiving! This is inspired by our pastry idol, Alice Medrich, from her amazing book, Bittersweet.
In gratitude,
From our family to yours,
Jael & Dan
Bittersweet Chocolate Tart
Shortbread Crust Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
¼ cup sugar
1/8 tsp sea salt
¾ tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1 egg yolk, reserved
Make the chocolate filling:
Chocolate filling ingredients:
8 oz. of your favorite dark chocolate, chopped finely (about 1 ½ cups)
1 cup heavy cream
1 egg, lightly beaten
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“The mission of B labs is to inspire people to use business as a force for good. That resonates deeply. My goal as a business leader is to continually learn, to grow as a human and a leader, and to make an increasingly positive impact on the people along our journey in chocolate.” Says Jael Rattigan, our Co-Founder/Co-Owner.
We are in good company nationally (Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, Warby Parker, Seventh Generation, Miir and Etsy are all B Corporations!) and we join the ranks of several of our favorite businesses right here in our hometown of Asheville including New Belgium Brewing, Barkhouse, New Mountain, Big Path Capital, Cloud for Good, Earth Equity Advisors, Deltec Homes and Mandala Naturals.
What The Heck Is A B Corporation?
B Corp certification is to sustainable business what fair trade is to sourcing, USDA Organic is to sustainable agriculture, and LEED is to green building - all rolled into one comprehensive certification. To become certified, we had to verify through documentation that we met stringent performance requirements outlined in the B Impact Assessment, a globally-recognized standard that looks at environmental performance, how a company treats its employees, the impact the company has on its customers and the broader community, as well as the company's accountability, governance, and transparency practices.
All of this documentation was a lot of hard work, much of it done by our inimitable Bookkeeper Moose (AKA Hannah Coulston) who managed the project over the course of a year in collaboration with Jael and Dan and our HR Director Lauren Stickels. Moose says, “It was surprising to learn how much good a business can actually do! The potential impact on our surroundings is amazing. B Labs has literally the most rigorous standards. We made our business transparent, there was no stone unturned. We got certified, which is a huge achievement but we already have so many ideas on how we can improve, it really opened our eyes!”
B The Change
We have long been committed to responsible, sustainable business practices, from direct-sourcing of cacao from farmers in Nicaragua, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala and Costa Rica, to working with producers and farmers in Western North Carolina to source ingredients, to using environmentally friendly packaging materials and composting all food waste, to paying fair wages to its employees. Our HR Director Lauren Stickels elaborates: “Our commitments to our staff include a commitment to pay fair wages, to provide thorough and timely feedback, opportunities for compensation increases though excellent performance, and upward mobility. We also take care of our staff by ensuring that they come to work in a place that is safe, and that the leaders they depend on can be trusted to advocate for their staff, daily.”
OUR MISSION: We make awesome chocolate:
beautiful, wholesome and delicious, crafted with love and served with gratitude.
OUR PRINCIPLES: (living and doing business by our values)
Employee Spotlight | September, 2017 | Moose
What is your position and how long have you worked for French Broad Chocolates?
I’m our Assistant Bookkeeper and I started last March, so it’s been one and a half years. I also go to UNCA- I graduate this winter with a BS in Global Business.
Why do you like working here?
I enjoy working with small businesses, and I really love the culture, it’s something that needs to be built over time, you can’t buy it. I enjoy the people here and that French Broad Chocolates treats the environment and its employees well.
What are you currently reading/listening to?
I’m reading a bunch of textbooks, my favorite is Strategic Management: Competitiveness and Globalization. My favorite short story is called The Egg by Andy Weir. It says that we are everyone, everything that you’ve done harmful to someone, you’ve done to yourself and everything you’ve done that’s good, you’ve done to yourself. I’m also reading The Gift Of Fear by Gavin de Becker- it’s about how our instinct and intuition are a gift. I’m reading it as part of a self-defense class I’m taking at UNCA, we discuss how to be safe and go into the gym and practice self-defense moves. For music, I’m always listening to Kendrick Lamar, I even have a plant at home named Kendrick, it’s a money tree!
What else are you into?
I’m into art- I love to paint! I’ve been busy lately but I’m getting back into it. I love to travel, over the summer I went to Budapest, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona and all over Morocco. I especially loved Budapest, it was my first time traveling overseas, the architecture is beautiful and you can walk everywhere. I went to a thermal spa and we hiked around the city, rode trains and ate so much food - I really loved the döner kebab. Surprisingly we didn’t get lost
What is your go-to form of self care?
Water. Going to my hometown in Coastal NC, hiking to a waterfall, I seek out water everywhere.
What’s your favorite place to go in Asheville?
I love Yacht Club - there are always interesting people there, and the food is good - I like to get the Yacht Club Club - my favorite beer is Highwire Brown but sometimes I mix it up with Dos Equis
What is your favorite French Broad Chocolates treat?
I’m actually not that into sweets but I love our Vanilla Cheesecake with Almond Crust - It’s one of my favorite things in life, I have fond memories of eating Cheesecake and watching Golden Girls with my grandma, I watch Golden Girls every night before I fall asleep.
What are you most excited about right now?
Graduating! I’m so excited! I’ve worked really hard and have had ups and downs but I didn’t stop and I’m getting it! I’m also super excited about our B-Corp Certification!
What was the process to get certified?
I gained interest at an event at New Belgium last summer, It was to spark interest among asheville companies that were interested in becoming B Corps. Their slogan is using business as a force for good. Business is one of my passions, I really believe in the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) so I really think that this is the future of business. The process took a long time. First I created an account through B-Labs, which gives you access to an 80 page assessment, Each assessment is based on industry, our industry is manufacturing. After you’ve reached the goal of 80/200 points, B labs audits the assessment and select things that they want to see documentation on. There’s a back and forth that took months of conference calls and supplying all the information that they requested, getting certified is a team activity. It took Jael and Dan’s help and Lauren (our Human Resources Director)’s help to get the full picture of the company and it took a year for us to get our certification. Every two years we are up for review, and the goal is to be continuously improving to have a greater impact on our triple bottom line.
What did you learn?
It was surprising to learn how much good a business can actually do. The potential impact on your surroundings is amazing. The categories of the assessment are Governance, Environment, Community, Workers, and Customers. It’s literally the most rigorous standards. We made our business transparent, there was no stone unturned. We got certified, which is a huge achievement, but we already have so many ideas on how we can improve, it really opened our eyes.
What are you the most passionate about improving?
I would like to see our company work with Just Economics again, to get living wage certified. We’re working on it and getting close. The cost of living in Asheville is very high. We’re already environmentally friendly but I want us to continue to improve our green production, as we’re expanding. Both of these things will help us to make an even bigger impact on our community and the world.
The days are getting shorter and the air is getting crisper. We welcome the metamorphosis with open arms, taking our time to express gratitude for family, friends, the beauty of our mountain home and the bounty of our local foodshed.
We created The Fall Collection in homage to this glorious season, from the Cider Caramel to the Pumpkin + Spice Truffle, each confection is handcrafted with our bean-to-bar chocolate and features ingredients thoughtfully sourced for their integrity, many from our local farmers like Flying Cloud Farm (pumpkins), McConnell Farms (cider), and Barkslip Farm (pears).
One of our favorite parts of our work is sharing the chocolate we make with our friends all over the world. We're so excited about the Fall Collection that we've decided to send a 12 Piece Box to one of our friends.
Simply leave a comment below telling us what you love the most about Fall. It could be apple picking, going to the fair (the NC Mountain State Fair starts this weekend!), carving pumpkins, or going for a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway to see all the changing leaves...
Winner will be announced on Wednesday 9/13/17
Contest ends at 12pm Tuesday EST 9/12/17 and is only open to our friends in the Lower 48.
Over the past ten years, our company has grown from a two-person, literal mom & pop business to a multifaceted, award-winning chocolate operation that employs over 80 people in our community. We could not be more excited to double down on Asheville, and dig deeper roots here in French Broad Chocolates' home city. Asheville, we love you, and can't wait to share our collective story with other communities, through more and better chocolate.
BIG love to all who have supported our efforts over the past decade. We thank you for this opportunity, and will do everything we can to bring more goodness to our community.
We're excited to announce the next step in our journey. Read on for the details!
Sweet Dreams
Starting this fall, visitors to our downtown dessert destination who want to enjoy a full-service experience will be seated in our ample dining room. The Chocolate Lounge is adding table service! Guests will still have the option to place to-go orders at the counter. The boutique next door will remain a favorite local insiders' tip, where it's easy to dip in for an ice cream cone, box of truffles, cappuccino, or gift from our Chocolate Bar Library.
Brett Sullivan, our General Manager at the Chocolate Lounge said “We love our locals - we couldn’t have gotten here without them. With the transition to table service, we are looking forward to making our guests’ experience even sweeter and returning to our roots as a community gathering place.”
RAMPing Up Production
"With the enthusiastic support of chocolate lovers near and far, we have a unique opportunity to scale our chocolate production to make more chocolate, at an ever-higher quality. We are proud to be Asheville's chocolate makers!" says our co-founder Dan Rattigan.
In the spring, our Chocolate Factory will be relocating to a 12,000 square foot facility in the River Arts Makers Place RAMP Studios (close to Ginger’s Revenge and Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff) along our namesake, the French Broad River. This will enable an immediate increase in production from 18 tons annually to 50 tons annually, and expand the educational component of our mission with a classroom and enhanced tour program. The new factory will also contain an immersive retail experience, offering coffee, chocolate, and our handcrafted ice cream.
“From the South Slope to the River Arts District we have been blessed to grow with our small mountain town. This expansion will contribute more jobs for the Asheville community and increase our level of education and interaction with the public. In turn, the farmers we source our beans from will directly benefit from the increase in exportation of beans to the factory. It’s been an amazing gig to create chocolate and bring smiles to folks’ faces, but it means everything to us to see the impact of our sourcing and bean-to-bar process on the lives of our small farmers around the world,” says our Lead Chocolate Maker Evan Ackerman.
I Scream, You Scream
In the summer, we will relocate our creamery (currently operating inside of our Pastry Kitchen at the Chocolate Lounge) to our South Slope facility at 21 Buxton Ave. Simply put, this will allow us to handcraft A. LOT. MORE. ICE. CREAM. Were tripling production. We’ll also be giving the retail space a makeover to accommodate an ice cream and dessert café with seating where guests can enjoy beer floats in a family-friendly location in the heart of Asheville's craft brewery scene.
“We LOVE being part of the South Slope community, and are excited to bring ice cream, chocolate, coffee, beer and baked goods to this thriving neighborhood!” says our co-founder, Jael Rattigan, who serves on the board of the South Slope Neighborhood Association.
Amplifying Our Impact
French Broad Chocolates embraces a “triple bottom line” business model which equally weighs people, planet and profits as measures of success. Through our intentional sourcing and business practices, we work hard to make a positive impact on our communities, both globally and at home here in Asheville.
As we Increase chocolate production, we will be able to directly-source (and pay well-above commodity prices for) a lot more cacao from our farmers in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Peru and Brazil, whose values align with ours.
More chocolate means more truffles and caramels, which means sourcing even more fresh, local ingredients from our farmer friends. When we expand our ice cream production, we will be able to purchase a lot more local, grass-fed dairy from Farm to Home Milk.
We are so excited to see the effects of the expansion rippling throughout our community as they amplify our environmental and economic impact. From offering more and better jobs to our talented family of employees, to continuing to support awesome local businesses like Danny’s Dumpsters, who compost all of our food scraps and to-go ware, we remain as committed as ever to our manifesto and the B-Corp mission of “people using business as a force for good”. We are currently in the final stages of assessment to become a certified B Corp, and are a three star Certified Green Restaurant through the Green Restaurant Association.
Our co-founder, Jael Rattigan offers, “We want to make you proud, Asheville. We are humbled and honored to be a prominent part of the cultural landscape here in our hometown, and we will continue to work hard, do our best, and live by the values of the Asheville community.”
]]>We're over the moon to announce that we took home FOUR prestigious International Chocolate Awards in the Americas & Asia-Pacific Category this year!
Farm-direct, organic hazelnuts dredged in layers of our bean-to-bar milk chocolate - our Hazelnut Dragée took a Silver!
Chewy local wildflower honey caramel steeped with local lavender, lightly sprinkled with lavender salt - our Lavender Honey Caramels took a Silver!
A smooth & creamy, not-too-sweet, grown-up version of a childhood favorite - our Milk + Chocolate 43% bar took a Silver!
A purée of local strawberries and organic balsamic vinegar in a dark chocolate and coconut cream ganache, sprinkled with cacao nibs - our Strawberry Balsamic Truffles took a Bronze!
Three Cheers for our Chocolate Makers (pictured below with a tray of our Strawberry Balsamic Truffles) + our Chocolatiers!
(Our Confections Team from L-R: Drew, Ben, Hillary, Sara, Jamie)
Click here to shop all of our award-winners!
]]>A giveaway you say? Yep. We're giving away a copy of The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge AND a 12 piece box of our Asheville Grown Collection. Read on for details...
Called "The One Food Book You Must Read This Year." by Southern Living Magazine and profiled here by NPR and here by the New York Times, The Potlikker Papers is a people’s history that reveals how Southerners shaped American culinary identity and how race relations impacted Southern food culture over six revolutionary decades. The book uses food as a lens that helps us connect the dots between food and culture and social justice, from the the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the "New Southern" cuisine that cities like our hometown of Asheville have become famous for.
Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, writes about the South with love and hope, paired with a firm belief that Southern eaters have a "responsibility to pay down the debts of pleasure owed to the enslaved African cooks and farmers who came before".
We at French Broad Chocolates consider ourselves incredibly lucky to call Asheville our home, and to be a part of the aforementioned "New Southern" food movement. We take our commitment to social and environmental and economic justice seriously and work hard to source all of our ingredients with intention. We feel truly blessed to live in a region that allows to source much of what we use locally, and develop and maintain close relationships with our farmers and organizations like the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project who advocate for them.
We created The Asheville Grown Collection as both a love letter to our mountain town and a celebration of the farmers and producers that comprise our bountiful foodshed. From raspberries to sorghum to lavender to honey, each of these handcrafted truffles and caramels features locally sourced ingredients combined with our bean-to-bar chocolate, grass-fed dairy and organic sugar.
We're over the moon to be partnering with Penguin Books on a seriously awesome (and simple) giveaway. Just leave a comment below telling us what "Southern Food" means to you. It could be a memory, a hope, a dream, a poem, a song... use your biscuit ;)
Contest closes on Wednesday, June 21. Winner will be announced on Thursday, June 22!
]]>We source whole, non-homogenized, low temperature pasteurized, 75% grassfed milk from Farm to Home Milk. We’re grateful to be able to offer you Farm to Home Milk: Wholesome Country Creamery and Farm to Home Milk both have practices that align with our values and appeal to us deeply, and we recognize and appreciate the care taken in their work.
Jonathon Flaum’s grandfather was a storyteller, and Jonathon grew up listening to stories set in Brooklyn in a time before phones and cars and refrigerators. “For some reason they stuck in my mind,” Jonathon says, “I really liked these stories.” After a time working as a playwright and speech-writer, “it came out of the blue, from a memory somewhere, that I was going to be a milkman. I wanted to live inside my grandfather’s stories.”
Jonathon reintroduced milk delivery to Asheville, North Carolina, in 2012 with his business Farm to Home Milk. “The vision for me was really simple,” he says. “We pick up milk and we deliver it is the short of it.” He originally planned on doing solely home delivery, dropping off a bottle at a time, on ice, on customers’ stoops. “That was golden,” he says. Four-and-a-half years later, Jonathon still has the kind of business he wanted but is the milkman for the independent restaurant community. He now delivers together with Brendan Bellamy, who came to Farm to Home seeking something simpler than the corporate grocery store environment where he was working previously.
John Hostetler comes from a family of dairy farmers, and has worked with cows from the age of five. He has run his own dairy since 1979, and he and his partner, Mary, relocated from Pennsylvania to Hamptonville, North Carolina, in 2005. They started selling their milk in the farmers’ co-operative model, sending it away in a tanker truck weekly to join other farmers’ milk for processing and bottling. Wholesome Country Creamery is an entirely family-run farm, and they follow impeccable standards through every step of production. The Hostetler’s 65 cows have either a diet of heirloom, GMO-free grass only or of seventy-five percent grass with a twenty-five percent supplement of corn and soy that’s been roasted to ease digestion and to add a nutty flavor to the milk. Eight of the Hostetler children work: Rhoda, Ruth, Esther and Wilma milk the cows, pasteurize the milk, bottle it and label while Daniel, Marcus, Paul and Alvin care for the fields, roast the corn and soybeans and make sure all the forages are just right. The high integrity of the Hostetler’s farming practices makes for a very expensive process and product, and it wasn’t fairly reflected when their milk was combined with milk produced by different methods. They needed to bottle to make a profit.
Jamie Ager of Hickory Nut Gap realized that Farm to Home Milk might be the solution: if Jonathon distributed the dairy, Wholesome Country Creamery could stop relying on the tanker. Jamie connected the two, and Jonathon remembers that he “kind of had to pass a test” before being invited to work as a partner. Both Jonathon and the Hostetlers operate under a sense of idealism that informs their shared standards, goals and reasoning for their businesses. It’s important to both that their businesses stay the right size and maintain complete integrity. Now, in addition to production, the Hostetler family pasteurizes, bottles - one bottle at a time with a foot pedal bottler - and labels their dairy. They practice low temperature vat pasteurization, which means slowly heating 45 gallons at a time to 145 degrees, then holding it at that temperature for a half hour to keep the flavor and the probiotics but kill potential Salmonella. So, the dairy that Farm to Home Milk leaves the farm with is non-homogenized, the fat and the nutrients in it preserved in a way our bodies can digest and absorb. Wholesome Country Creamery dairy passes through only the hands of the Hostetler family and Brendan or Jonathon before being shelved at the store or delivered to the restaurant. It’s usually been out of the cow less than 48 hours before delivery.
Farm to Home Milk also works with Maple View Farm in Hillsborough, North Carolina and Jonathon works with both farms as he would with close friends or family, fostering a mutual respect and never negotiating prices. Jonathon has crafted his business to fit the image he started it with: it’s fair, no one’s making too much money, his work is physical and his mind is free. He says that delivering milk is a present moment job, and that he does it because he likes to physically do it. He gets satisfaction and joy from the physical work, and it frees his mind to do other things, like connect with the people he encounters along his route. He says he likes to connect with other people who are working for a living. I’m always happy to see Jonathon out on deliveries or when he brings milk to the Lounge. We wave, we know each other by name, sometimes there’s time for a brief conversation. From these interactions I take a renewed sense of community and joy in doing the job I am doing: I can imagine what his grandfather’s stories were like.
Farm to Home Milk delivers to most of Asheville’s independent restaurants and coffee shops as well as to groceries. They serve 50 wholesale accounts - including New Belgium’s chocolate milk order for their employees - and Jonathon explains that it’s like having 50 relationships. Chefs and restaurant owners who understand the importance of integrous dairy (including from an animal welfare perspective) support Farm to Home Milk. Wholesale clients use the dairy to fill a spectrum of needs, and Jonathon knows . We’re proud to be able to offer a wholesome, delicious option that is produced locally and sustainably.
Jonathon is happy to be a milkman though it’s not always easy. “The thing about milk,” he says, “is that it doesn’t stop.” Things come up on the farm, trucks have issues and break down, shops run through more milk than they had expected to need. Jonathon was working 80 hours a week for some time, having thrown himself into it. He works about 40, now, together with Brendan. They deliver about 1400 gallons of milk each week on a route that runs between Hamptonville and Hillsborough through Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston Salem, Hickory, Morganton and Asheville. On Tuesdays, they make 35 deliveries between 5:30 am and 4 pm. Mondays they pick up dairy from Maple View Farm, Wednesdays and Fridays they pick up from Wholesome Country Creamery. The work and the week has a rhythm that Jonathon enjoys, and he says the key to enjoying the sometimes challenging work is maintaining the right attitude, one of patience and persistence. It’s clear from the outside that he and Brendan have it.
We use Farm to Home Milk to make hot chocolate, espresso drinks, pastry cream, vanilla cake, ice cream and milkshakes. Elliott Bass makes our ice cream, which uses about 30 of the 40-45 gallons of milk ordered for the Pastry Kitchen. The restaurant business is unpredictable, and ice cream sales are especially dependent on forecasting factors like weather that are often outside of our control. “Farm to Home makes sure we have everything we need. If we need it, and they have it, they bring it to us. Jonathon is my milk hero,” Elliott says. “Their milk is always of good quality, and they’re one of the most consistent [local vendors] which keeps our products at a high level of consistency, too, and quality.” We’re proud to be able to offer a wholesome, delicious option that is produced locally and sustainably.
Words by Hanna Zalesky, Photos by Katrina Ohstrom
]]>Here in Western North Carolina, Spring arrives a little bit earlier than in some parts. We've been thoroughly enjoying hikes through the Smokies hunting for spring ephemerals while friends and family up in New York and Maine share photos of their kiddos playing in the snow!
Regardless of where you hang your hat, Spring brings with it growth and inspiration. This year, we're celebrating by introducing The Spring Collection - six brand new Truffles and Caramels: Coconut Cream, Marshmallow, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Blood Orange Caramel, Lavender & Honey and Meyer Lemon.
Inspired by the new life that this season brings, these handcrafted confections pay homage to our favorite Springtime treats. In keeping with our theme of growth and inspiration, our confections team has accented each with a swirl of organic, naturally colored cocoa butter to make them extra beautiful while keeping in line with our commitment to using only wholesome ingredients thoughtfully sourced for their integrity.
One of our favorite parts of our work is sharing the chocolate we make with our friends all over the world. We're so excited about the Spring Collection that we've decided to send a 12 Piece Box to one of our friends.
Simply leave a comment below telling us your favorite things about the season!
It could be shopping for and preparing Spring greens from the farmer's market, dyeing eggs with your favorite little bunnies, birdwatching or foraging for mushrooms, or eating chocolate!
Winner will be announced on Monday 4/10/17 (which also happens to be our shipping deadline for Easter Delivery).
Hop to it!
Contest ends at 12pm Monday EST 4/10/17 and is only open to our friends in the Lower 48.
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A nostalgic nod to classic Easter basket treats, our Spring Collection of truffles and caramels includes flavors like Peanut Butter & Jelly, Marsh
mallow and Coconut Cream, alongside Blood Orange Caramel, Meyer Lemon and Lavender & Honey. Swirled with naturally colored cacao butter, they're as pretty as they are delicious. Peanut Butter Tumblers are available by the six, twelve or twenty-four piece box, too, as well as to add piece by piece to our newly re-introduced Custom Collection.
Fill their baskets with our award-winning 44% Malted Milk Bar, and Milk Chocolate Sip to make really special hot chocolate when the sun goes down.
We’ve vamped up our options for ordering our Brownies online! Choose from our classic Nibby, Mint Chocolate Chunk, Coconut Macaroon or a combination of all three.
Treat your favorite family to a Chocolate Subscription! A combination of truffles, caramels, brownies and artisan chocolate bars, there’s something inside for everyone and plenty to go around. Gift a three, six or twelve-month subscription of chocolate delivered right to the door.
For those with food sensitivities:
Our Buddha Collection is filled with creative flavor pairings that are enjoyed by all, but the collection is meant to honor those with food sensitivities and preferences. In addition to being free of dairy, it also contains no nuts, eggs or gluten.
Gift our Dark Chocolate Sip to make vegan hot drinking chocolate at home! Combine with water to recreate the Chocolate Sip we serve at the Chocolate Lounge (our dessert restaurant in Asheville), or stir into your favorite non-dairy milk alternative. The Dark Chocolate Sip is made with two simple ingredients: direct-trade cacao and a touch of organic fair-trade sugar.
Most of our Chocolate Bars are vegan! Choose from our 70% dark chocolate Coffee Bar, Limited Release 72% dark chocolate Scorpion Pepper Bar and our 80% single-origin Costa Rica Bar. Our bars include only carefully sourced direct-trade cacao, organic fair-trade sugar and listed additional ingredients (Mountain Air Roasting Coffee or Jah Works’ Trinidad Scorpion Pepper, for example).
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In our series, “A Sense Of Place”, we will introduce you to some of the regional farmers, growers and producers who supply us with the ingredients we use to make our chocolate, confections and pastries. Sourcing is at the heart of everything we do here at French Broad Chocolates and we share these stories in celebration of the many fine folks who make up our foodshed. We do this in keeping with our tradition of transparency and passion for sustainability, and in the hopes that these stories help you to form a deeper connection with your food (and also because we’re major foodies and absolutely love geeking out over all of our food crushes!).
“Peppers and chocolate make a good pair,” says grower and pepper enthusiast Bobby de Gorter of Jah Works Farm of Asheville, North Carolina. Both possess euphoric qualities, both boost energy, and both lend themselves to tasting with discernment, relishing the layers of flavors that reveal themselves slowly and differ slightly on everyone’s tongue. So it only makes sense that we’ve created a collaborative bar: French Broad Scorpion Pepper Dark Chocolate with Jah Works’ Trinidad Scorpion pepper. This particular pepper is an heirloom variety from Trinidad and likely dates back to the 16- or 1700’s. Though stinging hot if tasted on its own, it brings a delightful citrus flavor when combined with the cocoa butter and sugar in our bar. Along with Scotch bonnets, Thai and Ghost peppers, Peruvian heirlooms and Yellow Ox Horn sweet peppers, Bobby has about two dozen Trinidad plants in his greenhouse. Last year, French Broad Chocolates used fifteen pounds of them. This is one of Bobby’s first partnerships, and in a place where finding a market for your products can
pose a challenge, he says “it’s good to have a serious small business to partner with.” We think so, too.
Another connection between our chocolate and Bobby’s peppers: he’s been using our composted cacao hulls to mulch and fertilize. It’s nutrient dense, full of nitrogen, calcium, phosphorous and magnesium. Free of both synthetic materials and animal products and steeped in a philosophy of “life bringing life,” cacao is a good match to Bobby’s operation. He’s used about 500 pounds this year.Nothing grown here in Jah Works’ greenhouse is “the standard:” Bobby has cultivated his plants over the past five years, employing standard open pollination practices then selecting seeds for flavor and saving them year to year. He says he likes seeing the work, the dominant and recessive traits visible year to year. Working with the seeds and creating hybrids makes peppers the “most pleasing” plants for Bobby to grow though he has others as well, carrots, ginger, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, turnips, microgreens and basil among them. Bobby is working towards the goal of growing everything for Jah Works’ hot sauces, kimchis and other value added canned goods (right now he sources some ingredients from other Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project farmers, too). He’s been farming for twelve years, in the area for eleven, and turned to peppers as a way to do something commercial. After four years of growing in a windy greenhouse at home on the side of a mountain in Fairview, Bobby moved into his greenhouse space at Smith Mill Works. Historically run as a flower farm, Smith Mill Works opened in 2016 and now hosts many of our favorite local producers. It’s located only a couple miles outside of downtown Asheville, making it a hub for truly local food. “You are in your market,” explains Bobby.
You can find Jah Works’ products in the French Broad Food Co-op, Asheville Direct, Made-in-Asheville, Tree and Vine, The Fresh Quarter in the Grove Arcade, Hickory Nut Gap, Fifth Season Market on Tunnel Road, at Trout Lily Farm and on the table at Oyster House, Native café in Swannanoa and the Block off Biltmore. You’ll see them at Asheville City Market this winter and at the Fairview Farmer’s Market weekly.
]]>In our new monthly series, “A Sense Of Place”, we will introduce you to some of the regional farmers, growers and producers who supply us with the ingredients we use to make our chocolate, confections and pastries. Sourcing is at the heart of everything we do here at French Broad Chocolates and we share these stories in celebration of the many fine folks who make up our foodshed. We do this in keeping with our tradition of transparency and passion for sustainability, and in the hopes that these stories help you to form a deeper connection with your food (and also because we’re major foodies and absolutely love geeking out over all of our food crushes!).
Our Sea Salt 75% bar is relatively new to our lineup of Artisan Bars. When I asked Crawford Rizor, our Head Chocolate Maker, to talk about the history behind this particular bar, I was sure that I’d come away both sated with information and craving chocolate. I wasn’t disappointed:
“For some time, we have been excited to find another use for Cacao Bisiesto, the origin for our Nicaraguan seed, which we hold in very high regard…” He continues “It is our strongest sourcing relationship and overall, one of our favorite cacaos to work with, though it does have a distinct flavor profile which limits itvs uses in some cases. At the time we were creating our 2016-2018 chocolate portfolio, it became clear that a dark chocolate with sea-salt was a strong candidate for our bar line-up. We previously had offered a 75% dark chocolate with cacao from Morropón, Perú and sea salt flakes from Maldon, and while we were happy with the concept and the salt, the bar as a whole didn’t mesh as well as we would have hoped. With those things in mind, we set out to come up something that just really worked.. After running a cacao through our sampling procedure that takes it from seed to liquor and determining its objective quality, we test it as four additional standard formulations to begin to hone in on its best subjective use: 65%, 75% and 85% dark, as well as a 60% dark milk. We made the determination to continue offering our 68% dark bar made with this cacao (a 2-ingredient bar that has won several awards to date), the 85% was perceived to be out of balance and the dark milk was an off-putting color; besides reaching the 75% as the only viable option by exclusion, we were exceptionally happy with the way the first batch turned out. It became immediately obvious that this was a strong contender for a salt bar.”
Crawford explained that the tasting notes included cacao shell, peanuts, BBQ chips, buttered biscuit, savory, fried chicken batter and that they felt that it was practically begging to be paired with a well-balanced sea salt.
The chocolate team did tests with a Peruvian pink salt, Maldon, and Carolina Flake from Bulls Bay Saltworks, who our co-owner Dan Rattigan had met last year at the Charleston Wine and Food Festival. The chocolate team found the Carolina Flake crystals to be an ideal textural complement to the softness and high-fat content of the cacao, and loved how the salinity and clean minerality were in great balance with the flavors of this chocolate. And, Crawford excitedly adds, “It just so happens that this salt is produced as close as is possible to our mountain town, rather than in the UK or Perú!”
In sticking with our theme of origins, the source and “merroir” (think terroir but of the sea instead of earth) of the water itself is a huge part of what makes Bulls Bay’s salt so special. I paid a visit to Bulls Bay Saltworks, located just outside of Charleston, SC back in April. Owners Teresa and Rustin Gooden enthusiastically showed me the greenhouse where they use solar and wind energy to transform seawater into the Carolina Flake as well as the rest of their lineup. We then drove just a couple of miles to the absolutely gorgeous spot where they harvest the water.
“The area where we get the water is called Lofton’s Landing and it's on the edge of Bulls Bay and the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, “ Teresa explains. “It’s buffered by over 200,000 acres of the Francis Marion National Forest and part of a Class One Wilderness Area which protects the air quality. It is also Shellfish Harvesting Area 7A as designated by DHEC who regulates the commercial harvest of the very popular Bulls Bay clams and oysters.” She enthusiastically adds… “Cape Romain is also included in the UNESCO South Atlantic Coastal Plain Biosphere Reserve, is part of the Atlantic Flyway - critical to migrating birds, and the location of the largest nesting grounds of the endangered loggerhead sea turtle, with more active nests found in our area than all of the rest of South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina combined.”
The Goodens describe the beginning of their multi-step process “First we decide when to collect water, this decision is largely based on the how high the tide will be and how recently it has rained. This week we have a new moon and the tide will be the highest of the month increasing the salinity of the water as the salt that has collected on the grasses and higher ground redissolves with the high water. To take advantage of those conditions, we'll make three or four trips on Thursday and Friday, collecting around 1,000 gallons each trip. “
Back on the home property, the Goodens pump the water into storage tanks. Some of the water makes its way into the smaller storage tanks inside the greenhouses and into the empty tubs as needed for evaporation. Under sunny, dry weather conditions they start seeing salt form in less than two weeks, when most of the liquid has evaporated. The harvested salt is given a quick rinse in a concentrated brine and then it is set up to dry.
In case it wasn’t apparent by now, we couldn’t be more excited about our collaboration with Bulls Bay Saltworks. Teresa and Rustin are truly kindred spirits and we are over the moon elated to share our Sea Salt 75% bar with you. Crafted using only three ingredients, it is a perfect example of the whole being so much more than the sum of its parts.