Tours for chocolate lovers not just about sampling sweets
NEW YORK » A tour for chocolate lovers in Brooklyn, New York, isn’t just about tasting the final product. It also gives a peek at factories, neighborhoods and even business plans.
The chocolate tour offered by A Slice of Brooklyn takes visitors to four chocolate-makers around Brooklyn. “I love chocolate,” said Christine Dietz of San Diego, who was treated to the tour by friends throwing her a bachelorette party in New York. “But it’s really cool that we also get a bit of a tour of the city.”
But A Slice of Brooklyn’s chocolate tour is also part of a bigger trend. Confectioners and tour companies around the country are offering chocolate tours catering not just to the public’s sweet tooth, but also to consumer interest in learning where the products they eat and drink come from.
EDUCATING CONSUMERS
“Customers care about what they put in their mouths — especially millennials and GenXers,” said Pam Williams, founder of the online academy Ecole Chocolat School of Professional Chocolate Arts. “They want to know where their food comes from and how it is processed.”
And while everybody knows that wine comes from grapes, “very, very few actually understand that chocolate comes from the seeds of a tree,” said Williams, who is also co-founder of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association.
Inviting customers “into the factory to see the beans and the machinery that turn those beans into chocolate is a very good way to educate consumers on fine chocolate.”