Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker

Scharffen Berger Chocolate is a line of chocolate produced by Artisan Confections Company, a subsidiary of The Hershey Company. Acquired by Hershey in 2005, it was formerly Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, an independent Berkeley, California-based chocolate maker, founded in 1996 by sparkling wine maker John Scharffenberger and physician Robert Steinberg.

The company was a manufacturer of chocolate — as opposed to the far more common chocolatiers, who make their products using chocolate acquired from wholesalers and manufacturers — the first American company founded in the past 50 years to make chocolate "from bean to bar". Scharffen Berger primarily produced chocolate bars, using small-batch processing and focusing on dark chocolate varieties with high cocoa solid content.

The company's origins lie with founders John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. In 1989, Steinberg, a physician, was diagnosed with cancer and given a 50% chance of dying within ten years of the diagnosis. Steinberg promptly sold his practice and began exploring other career options. He read through a 600-page chocolate cookbook at the urging of a friend, which sparked Steinberg's interest in chocolate making. He began travelling to study the process of chocolate making. Steinberg toured the Bernachon chocolate company in Lyon, France, in 1993. He soon composed a letter in French asking Bernachon for an internship and was granted a brief two weeks with the small company.

Steinberg returned from his internship in France and soon ran into John Scharffenberger, his former patient and neighbor. Scharffenberger, a winemaker and businessman, was selling his winery, Scharffenberger Cellars, and was exploring potential new business opportunities. Steinberg offered Scharffenberger a piece of French chocolate which he happened to have in his pocket. "Robert had this chunk of chocolate in his pocket that I think he'd been carrying for months. But it tasted better than anything I'd ever had," Scharffenberger later recalled in a 1998 interview with People Magazine.

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