A Bar Apart: Symbol of Substance

Editor's note: Chocolate labels can be misleading. When you think about it, all chocolate bars are made from beans, so what does "bean-to-bar" really mean? It should mean bars crafted by makers using cacao beans, but it doesn't always. The recently launched A Bar Apart symbol means exactly that.

A Bar Apart

Although chocolate has been made directly from cacao beans for centuries, the modern bean-to-bar/craft or fine chocolate movement emerged in the late 1990s when small makers began emphasizing direct cacao sourcing, transparency, and the unique flavors of single-origin beans. Fast forward to today, Luke Owen Smith, Chocolate Professor contributing editor and the creator of New Zealand’s A Bar Apart, says the newly minted emblem is designed to help people differentiate between mass-produced chocolate made from scratch, chocolatiers using pre-made mass-produced chocolate, and bean-to-bar craft chocolate.

Correcting the Misconception

Luke Owen Smith, founder of A Bar Apart

After more than a decade in the craft chocolate industry, Owen Smith saw the same misconception repeated: many consumers and some chocolatiers didn't realize there is a fundamental difference between chocolate made from scratch and that made with commercially manufactured couverture. The result, he says, is an industry where marketing often obscures how chocolate is made and where the cacao comes from.

That observation sparked the idea for A Bar Apart, a shared emblem that identifies genuine bean-to-bar chocolate and brings together New Zealand's craft chocolate makers under a common set of standards. Rather than functioning as an award or certification, the emblem serves as a signpost, indicating that the maker has crafted the chocolate from scratch, disclosed the origin of its cacao beyond simply naming the country, and openly shares how it is made. Its purpose is not to guarantee ethical sourcing or superior quality, areas Owen Smith believes are too nuanced for a single badge, but to give consumers clearer information about provenance and production so they can make more informed choices. "I want to help consumers understand the industry more and help craft chocolate makers get the recognition they deserve," he says. "Chocolate is very complex. Organizations that aim to guarantee ethics or quality can struggle to do so. Our main aim is to help consumers understand how their chocolate is made and where it comes from."

The idea had been taking shape in his mind for years. An initial attempt to establish a New Zealand chocolate makers' guild in 2021 ultimately laid the groundwork for what would become A Bar Apart. Instead of creating a formal industry body, Owen Smith spent the following year refining the concept, consulting makers around the world, testing prototypes and, with partner Emily, designing the final emblem: a symbol that fifteen New Zealand bean-to-bar makers were willing to stand behind.

Bean-to-bar Confusion

While "bean-to-bar" has become increasingly familiar within food circles, Owen Smith believes the term still leaves many consumers puzzled. Decades of marketing from multinational chocolate companies to little chocolatiers have blurred the distinction between chocolate made from scratch and chocolate manufactured from industrial couverture, he says, adding, “Over the past couple of decades, a lot of mass-produced chocolate has decreased in quality, as more brands have been bought out by global corporations that constantly strive to decrease costs and increase profits. This shift was accelerated in the past couple of years, as the cost of cacao increased and commercial brands started reducing the cacao content of their chocolate.” Add to this the increase in the development of lab-grown cacao alternatives and artificial 'chocolate,' and you can see how mainstream chocolate is increasingly watered down, explains Owen Smith.  The result is a marketplace where beautiful packaging and carefully crafted stories often reveal little about who actually made the chocolate or where the cacao originated.

What the Symbol Means

• Bean to bar

• Transparent origin

• Transparent process

• Celebrating flavor diversity

A Bar Apart aims to cut through the noise. To display the emblem, makers must produce chocolate from bean to bar, disclose the source of their cacao beyond simply naming the country, publicly demonstrate how they make their chocolate, whether through social media, factory tours or online content, and work with specialty cacao capable of expressing flavors beyond the familiar "chocolatey" one note of mainstream bars.

Uniting Under a Common Cause

A Bar Apart symbol on packaging

Convincing competitors to unite behind a shared identity might seem ambitious, but in New Zealand's relatively small craft chocolate community, collaboration has long been part of the culture. Having spent more than 11 years building relationships across the industry, Owen Smith approached local makers not as rivals but as collaborators with a common challenge: educating consumers.

His pitch was straightforward: by pooling resources, independent chocolate makers could secure a level of public awareness and media attention that none could generate alone. "I was expecting a lot of pushback," he says, "But actually, there was none of that."

That willingness to collaborate reflects what Owen Smith sees as one of New Zealand's greatest strengths. Despite a population of just over five million, the country is home to more than 20 craft chocolate makers, many of whom have earned international recognition. Like New Zealand's wine, coffee and artisan food industries, craft chocolate has built a reputation for quality that far outweighs the country's size.

 As industrial chocolate continues to consolidate and cut costs, Owen Smith believes the contrast with craft chocolate will become apparent. Consumers, he says, are beginning to seek products with a stronger sense of place, transparency and craftsmanship, qualities that have defined bean-to-bar makers since their inception. “As mainstream chocolate gets increasingly watered down, I believe more and more people will yearn for chocolate with depth, integrity, and genuine cacao flavor. Craft chocolate will answer that call with panache,” says Owen Smith.

While A Bar Apart is still a young initiative, Owen Smith sees it as one small contribution to a much larger movement. "There are so many amazing things happening in craft chocolate, and so many people still have no idea," he says. "I hope A Bar Apart can play a role in helping more people discover this beautiful culture."

If that happens, the emblem on the wrapper will have achieved exactly what it was designed to do: invite people to look beyond chocolate as a commodity and appreciate it as a craft, one bar at a time.