Whole Foods Dark Chocolate Pear & Almond

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, almonds, cocoa butter, butter oil, inulin, pear, natural flavoring, soy lecithin

14g sugar/38g serving (36.8% by wt.)

Corporate Info: See two weeks ago, both this section and the introduction. This week's bar isn't organic or whatever else; it's Whole Foods' attempt at upscale chocolate flavors. So how do they do?

Appearance: Flat, lightly textured, deep reddish brown, with pale flecks under the surface. A cross-section reveals slivered almonds and, due to slightly different color and shape, what must be tiny pieces of pear.

Smell: In both color and smell this is actually dark, probably at least 60%, though the package doesn't say. Light, nutty, winey. No pear smell as far as I can tell.

Taste: What stands out is pear, which based on the ingredients is just in the pieces (“natural flavoring” is in parentheses next to pear, along with inulin and dehydrated pear; there's no “flavoring” in the chocolate itself), but it jumps out like liberally applied pear extract, sweet, with a candyish texture but a real ripe pear vibe, as in a pear Jelly Belly. Almonds are more low-key and textural, and chocolate isn't in front but does have some winey flavor, so it doesn't get lost.

Conclusion: Whole Foods Dark Chocolate Pear & Almond isn't for lovers of super dark chocolate, but it does provide pear flavor, almond texture, and a legitimate dark chocolate foundation.

Whole Foods Organic 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate Tanzania Schoolhouse Project

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic chocolate liquor, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa butter

10g sugar/38g serving (26.3% by wt.)

Corporate Info: See last week, both this section and the introduction. This week's bar is both organic and connected to a particular charity: The back of the box says “all proceeds are donated to help meet educational needs of schoolchildren in the district of Kyela, Mbeya region of Tanzania,” and, by the way, “the organic cacao used to make each bar is purchased from farmers in this region and is certified by the Fair for Life Social & Fair Trade Certification Program. Enjoy and feel good about it!” So that's nice, if annoyingly self-congratulatory.

Appearance: Very similar to last week's bar, though I'd say it's maybe half a shade lighter in color.

Smell: Again, like the Costa Rican chocolate, this doesn't smell challenging—round and warm, not sour or anything. It might be little nuttier and less fruity, but the similarities (despite the fact that the beans come from different continents) are challenging my sense of smell!

Taste: Again, creamy, waxy, and rich, with a rounded dark flavor, but not as fruity as the other bar, lighter in a way, reminding me of milk, cream, and nuts.

Conclusion: Whole Foods Organic 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate Tanzania Schoolhouse Project is dark but not heavy, light-bodied with a rounded flavor and creamy texture.

Whole Foods 71% Cacao Costa Rica Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla flavor

10g sugar/38g serving (26.3% by wt.)

The other day I stopped by Whole Foods for vegetables and discovered that the chain had changed its entire line of store brand chocolate bars. The new line presumably aims at the same demographic—people who will spend extra for local/organic/fair trade/sustainable and are leery of unpronounceable ingredients, i.e. Whole Foods shoppers—but the change seems to be an attempt to stay within current trends in both sustainability and chocolate consumption. The old chocolate was your basic “Milk chocolate” or “Dark chocolate with almonds” in bright, simple packaging, sometimes using the words “organic” or the classic, evocative “Swiss.” The new line includes more dark varieties, single-origin bars, and upscale flavoring combinations in Vosges-shaped thin boxes bearing lots of words, sustainability-certification-type stamps, earthy colors, and photos of people and sights in tropical locales. They're also marketing it under their Whole Foods brand rather than under their 365 “value” brand.

I bought three of the new bars to review over the next weeks, among them today's 71% single-origin Costa Rican bar (but made in Belgium, so there's still some Euro-cachet). Incidentally, this bar's carries Whole Foods' self-defined Whole Trade Guarantee and is made with Rainforest Alliance Certified cacao. These distinctions are, like organic, fair trade, direct trade, and all those others, complicated and varying degrees of meaningful to the well-intentioned consumer. I won't pretend to fully understand them (I suspect very few people really do), and one of these days I'd like to write a post on whatever I can learn about the real-world significance of each. Compared to eating chocolate, that's frustrating and boring, so it's on the back burner.

Corporate Info: After all the above, let's keep this one short. Whole Foods Market is a major American supermarket chain focusing on upscale and health food. People have all sorts of opinions on it because of its relatively high prices (at least in part because of the nature of the products, maybe also because its customers are willing to pay more), penchant for taking over regional health food chains, and outspoken co-founder/one-time CEO, but it also gives health-food devotees supermarket-style access to their preferred products, including many of the chocolate bars I review here.

Appearance: Surface is semi-glossy and finely textured, with a red-orange undertone.

Smell: Big, warm, round—that is, there's a lot of aroma but nothing pungent. Like ripe cherries or berries or something.

Taste: Texture is creamy, waxy, rich, mouth-coating. Flavor is full, not too sweet, not at all sour or bitter. This is the crowd-pleaser of very dark chocolates, fruity and winey without any challenging or unpleasant edges.

Conclusion: Whole Foods 71% Cacao Costa Rica Dark Chocolate is exactly what an upscale store brand would do when attempting to make a good-quality but not off-putting fairly dark chocolate.