If you’re into chocolate and are in the USA, read this – particularly the linked article – because it’s eye-opening.
$2,080 per pound, for remoulded couverture? Eek!
Noka – An American Chocolate Story
Comments
17 responses to “Noka – An American Chocolate Story”
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
Wow, thanks for the link and my introduction to true chocolate geekery. 🙂
A quick google found http://www.chocolatetradingco.com is a supplier of many of the brands mentioned in the article, for anyone else intrigued by how these premier brands compare with regular chocolate. I feel a little experimentation coming on…
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
i think i’ll just waddle over to the store and grab a Hershey bar – for US$1.29
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
Wow. That is loooooong. At the end of the day, it seems like the writer arrived at the conclusion that NOKA really DOES offer high quality, highly pure single-source chocolate, just as they claim. While he suggests that they aren’t forthcoming about the source of their couverture, it doesn’t seem that unusual or surprising for a food company to seek to keep its source materials a secret. The fact that the author doesn’t identify him/herself, yet suggests that his palate alone can determine if NOKA’s chocolatier is telling the truth makes me uncomfortable. If this was written by a respected foodie, I might feel different, but this guy’s previous claim to fame appears to be a multi-part series on chicken fried steak.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
Hmmmmm… and that your IP address comes from Texas, and you say the article is loooooooooooooooooong as if to put people off reading it?
That sounds more like propaganda against the motion, rather than objective opinion. 🙂
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
Propaganda is the word for it. Robert Synnott has helpfully tracked down a number of blog posts from this guy, who appears to be with a PR firm hired by Noka. Nice.
See Synnott’s list at his blog: blog.rsynnott.com/dan-noka-chocolates-valiant-defender.html
Sam
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
What galls me about Dan’s response’s tone is that not merely does it mis-represent the dallasfood article, but also seems to imply – for instance – that one must nbe a “respected” foodie in order to write something about food.
I write about food all the time. I’m not terribly respected, but on the other hand what I know about coffee and chocolate and whisky can bore an entire cocktail party for hours, and mostly be technically correct.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
We love gourmet chocolate, so we welcome a chance to talk about our company and its products.
We are proud that many have found them to be worth the price. The food editors of TASTE recently ranked as the top luxury chocolate in the world, which reflects the high quality and pure nature of our chocolates and truffles.
Furthermore, all of our communications, including our Web site and a small booklet included with every gift we sell, identify co-owner Katrina Merrem as our chocolatier. We have never intentionally suggested that she is a “chocolate maker” (engaged in roasting, grinding and otherwise processing cacao into couverture).
However, we stress that NOKA Chocolate is “our chocolate.” NOKA’s couverture is made to our strict specifications. We specify the source ingredients, the region from which the ingredients are sourced and the process by which the couverture is made.
Thanks for the opportunity to share our side of the story.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
If you welcome the chance to talk about your products, please start with identifying the source of your couverture.
Tell us who is making it. Tell us in what ways, if any, the chocolate they make for you differs from the chocolate they make available to other buyers.
If you can show to the public that you’re not using Bonnat’s chocolate, then the DallasFood guy got one part of his story wrong.
Why won’t you say who you’re buying from, if you’re so proud of the quality of the chocolate? Every serious chocolatier under the sun will tell you whose couverture he’s using. But you just say, “Trust us.”
Sam
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
I’d never heard of the company and wouldn’t dream of spending that much money on chocolate anyway so I don’t have any strong feelings about the “expose”. But I enjoyed reading the article, and I feel much more educated about chocolate than I was before. Thanks for sharing it, Alec.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
This is complicated, but the bottom line is as I write this comment I am engaged as a PR person representing NOKA. The original comments were written prior to that and reflected my personal opinion. However, facts are facts and that makes it worthy of an update. So as Kirk Brewer suggested in a post on my site (www.dpkpr.com), I am posting this update. Thanks to Kirk and others for their constructive feedback. As others have noted, NOKA has issued a statement regarding the issues raised by Dallas Food and we are in the process of getting that out. Since my personal opinions are no longer relevant, I won’t be reposting.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
dan wrote: “If this was written by a respected foodie, I might feel different, but this guy’s previous claim to fame appears to be a multi-part series on chicken fried steak.”
In addition to your admissions that you are a bought and paid for employee of the company in question, you should probably also apologize to the writer of the original piece for your widespread public slander.
Spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt is an age-old PR tactic, but that doesn’t make it ethical.
In your article on your site regarding the ethical nature of blog posted for pr flacks, you should mention this.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
dan wrote: “If this was written by a respected foodie, I might feel different, but this guy’s previous claim to fame appears to be a multi-part series on chicken fried steak.”
In addition to your admissions that you are a bought and paid for employee of the company in question, you should probably also apologize to the writer of the original piece for your widespread public slander.
Spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt is an age-old PR tactic, but that doesn’t make it ethical.
In your article on your site regarding the ethical nature of blog posted for pr flacks, you should mention this.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
If I ran a company that was written about in an article like the one in DallasFood and it wasn’t true – I would be mortified and take any available oppurtunity to prove that it wasn’t the case.
However, since Katrina Merrem apprarently will not reveal information that is readily available, indeed, posted on other chocolate companies websites regularly siting the source of their couverture but instead chooses to write “replies” that purposely obvuscate and dance around what is essentially a very simple question leaves one to consider the very real possibility that they are in fact simply repackaging another companies chocolate and grossly inflating the price.
Furthermore, hiring a PR agent to defend said company is a slick move that only seems to complicate the situation when essentially the only thing everyone wants to know is:
Is your source of couverture from Bonnat?
A very simple question with a very simple answer, but one that Noka will seemingly not answer.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
I also would like to add that revealing that your source is not Bonnat is not the same as revealing what your actual source is if that is somehow relevant to your “trade”.
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re: Noka – An American Chocolate Story
See ya later Noka. Nice knowin’ ya. What’s your next business plan? Distracting babies just long enough for the other one to swipe their candy?
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Before looking up my IP, I’ll tell you that I do live in Texas, but no I do not work for Noka, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. I’ve not even tasted the chocolate.
Let me just say though, that although several great points are raised by this article, do you think the people who are buying this super expensive chocolate really care? It’s all about marketing an image. Please tell me that some of the people replying to this have actually taken a marketing class or two.
Also, do the socialites of NYC really care where D&G or Prada or Valentino or Armani get their materials? I think not. All they care about is that name that’s plastered across their bag or pair of $200 shoes.
And enough ranting about “unethical practices.” Does Noka blatantly advertise that they make the chocolate themselves, all the way down to getting out the plow and tilling the land by hand, while waiting for grandma to ring the dinner bell? No. If they did, then I might see good reason for public outrage, but this, this is just petty quibbling.
Really people, come to grips with the fact that you’re only complaining because you are not one of those socialites, and stop looking for outlets to release your displeasure for your unfulfilled lives. There are certainly more important issues in our world than who watered the cocoa tree that your chocolate was made from. -
Dave you raise some good points though your logic is flawed. I’m actually in the chocolate biz in the Pacific NW, far removed from TX, and have never tried Noka.
Here’s the heartburn that I get, Noka is simply taking a finished product, melting it, molding it and reselling it. They are not providing any value to the finished product outside of a fancy box and marketing spin.
Designers such as D&G, Prada, etc., that price their products in the extreme for non-socialites, are at least adding some value to the finished product. They are sourcing fabric, employing fashion designers to come up with new designs, and in essence developing clothing and accessories that continually evolve and impact day to day life over time (e.g. other companies replicate their designs and develop products based on them, typically for lower prices).
What these clothing designers are not doing is buying a “finished product” made at a much lower price, slapping their logo on it and reselling it for 100s to 1000s of times the original price. Although I do not think that buying a Prada handbag for my wife at $700 makes much sense, at least I can say that the bag wasn’t made by some other company for say, $50 and then that very same bag (with no alterations to its original ‘ingredients’ increased to an outrageous price.
PLEASE read my words very carefully so you do not miss my point. Designers make a product from base materials and adding their branding increases the price. Everybody knows this. What Noka is doing is taking a finished product and simply adding their name with no value add. This is what gives people in the chocolate biz and consumers irritation as it is simply not a good business practice. From the chocolate industry point-of-view, many small up and coming chocolate shops have tried this exact same type of marketing technique as a way to try to justify an extremely high price. But most if not all are in the end found out. Noka has just been extremely lucky. Over the long run it will probably hurt their business.
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