Aug. 22, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET
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Bedford, N.H.
In the brightly lit sales room of his chocolate store, David Mack swoons over a 72% dark-chocolate variety from the Semuliki Forest region of Uganda.
“I love this one, the complexity,” says Mr. Mack of his favorite variety from Loon Chocolate, the company he co-owns.
What makes chocolate ethical? As consumers and chocolate makers around the world examine that question, some have settled on a simple answer: Buy cocoa directly from the farmers who grow it.
Business is booming at this boutique chocolate maker here, which Mr. Mack runs with his wife, Rachel. When the couple bought the business from the original founder in 2022, Loon Chocolate was sold in 30 regional shops. Today, that number has climbed to close to 700.
Loon’s rise is, in many ways, counterintuitive. Global cocoa prices hit record highs during the past three years, while new tariffs also raised prices on everything from the rubber gloves used in its production kitchen to the packaging around its bars.
In this moment of significant turmoil for the global chocolate industry, some boutique chocolate makers, including this one, have emerged as surprise success stories. That’s in part because paying higher prices for raw ingredients, such as cocoa beans and sugar, is already baked into their business model.
But their success also reflects another trend: Consumers are becoming more interested in the origins of their chocolate. A 2024 survey by the National Confectioners Association found 82% of buyers cared about a brand’s commitments to both people and the planet. Loon emphasizes its story everywhere it can – from its packaging to the three-dimensional map in its salesroom that traces the entire journey of its ingredients from “bean to bar.”
Many consumers want products that “identify with their values,” says Carla Martin, founder and board president of the Institute for Cacao and Chocolate Research. For them, “a meaningful story … goes a long way.”
The global market of chocolate made from a single, traceable source of beans is worth roughly $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion annually at current market prices – between 5-7% of the total chocolate market, according to an estimate compiled by Dr. Martin and her colleagues. But demand for chocolate with a high cocoa content, a clear origin story, and attention paid to farmers and the climate is growing rapidly.
The pursuit of values is what inspired Alex Whitmore of Taza Chocolate to enter the business two decades ago. As an anthropology major in college, he became fascinated by chocolate’s history in Latin America, which dates back thousands of years. After getting laid off from the startup Zipcar in the early 2000s, he traveled through the region, experiencing its chocolate-making tradition firsthand.
The trip gave Mr. Whitmore the idea to make Mexican-style chocolate, including one product inspired by Mexico’s Oaxaca, back home in Somerville, Massachusetts. At the time, craft chocolate was a niche business. But the farm-to-table movement was gaining momentum among food entrepreneurs and consumers.
In 2005, Mr. Whitmore and his wife, Kathleen Fulton, began hand-grinding cocoa beans in the basement of their apartment. They named their company Taza – “cup” in Spanish – as a nod to chocolate’s roots as a beverage.
Their gritty-textured, intensely flavored chocolate products soon gained a following. As were the company’s efforts to educate its customers about where its cocoa was grown – and by whom.
At the time, the public was growing increasingly aware of the often troubling origins of their favorite dessert. “The price [of cocoa] has been heavily deflated for hundreds of years,” explains Dr. Martin. She says that is because when the beans were first traded in the West during the colonial era, cocoa was often grown by slaves and other forced laborers, allowing for an artificially low price that became the industry standard.
