'Misleading And Unsubstantiated': Mast Brothers Respond To Claims Of Fraudulent Chocolate Bars

The Mast Brothers are probably two of the most hated figures in the chocolate industry today. Following a series of blog posts that called into question the integrity of their bean to bar claims, the bearded brothers with an affinity for wallpaper packaging and high-priced chocolate have been put on the defensive.

The original blog posts published in the Dallas Food blog claim that the chocolate the brothers create is questionable in quality and that the Masts themselves have admitted to using industry-grade chocolate in the early stages of their company. Today, Rick Mast has published a note on their website defending their chocolate and calling the recent claims, "misleading, unsubstantiated, and in many cases, unsourced." He insists that the brothers only used industry-grade chocolate as part of their experimental first year before they began producing chocolate en-masse.

In the post, they have answered multiple questions that chocolate fans and angry New Yorkers have brought up on social media including, "Do you re-melt chocolate" ("No, we make all of our chocolate from bean to bar."), "How did you use couverture chocolate (high-quality chocolate that contains a high percentage of cocoa butter such as Valrhona chocolate) in your experimental first year?" ("We happily used it in scores of truffles, various confections, and pastries....even this hardly controversial act was done on a miniscule level and even though it was technically bean to bar still, we didn't label it as such.")

The brothers also denied claims that they were the first bean to bar manufacturer, or that they ever made a chocolate bar without using these previously mentioned vigorous bean to bar techniques.  

We spoke to Scott Craig, who originally posted the blog series, What Lies Behind the Beards, and he doesn't put much stock into the Mast Brothers defense: "Honesty permits that degree of simplicity," he told The Daily Meal. "The Masts' pivot from repeated public denials to an admission couched in righteously indignant circumlocution speaks for itself."