Karen linkedin joseph schmidt confections

Ronnie Sampson and Nancy Martin of CBTB gave a presentation at the International Chocolate Salon on March 30 in Golden Gate Park. The following is a rough transcript of the talk:

We write a blog with some friends called Chocolate By the Bay, which focuses on local artisan chocolate.

We started the blog in , and we thought for today’s talk we’d cover the pioneers of local artisan chocolate, and the veterans who have been making artisan chocolate here since before we started our blog.

The 2 originals

Local chocolate history started during the Gold Rush with Ghirardelli and Guittard, two chocolate makers whose companies are still in business today.

But that’s ancient history, and this is an incomplete history, so we are going to skip that era.

Our modern pioneers

Instead today we are focusing on local artisan chocolate.

And by artisan, we mean small batch, handmade, craft chocolate, including bean to bar, and often organic, no preservatives, non-GMO, fair trade, etc.