Bean-to-bar, tree-to-bar, melters and private label producers, from craft workshops to industrial brands. Each maker page shows what they make, where they are based, and the bars Chof has tasted.
Read our buying guide to choose better chocolate bars and makers.
Looking for the best? See the Top 20 chocolate makers.
Every chocolate maker indexed on Chof, in alphabetical order.
Not every chocolate brand actually makes chocolate. Here is the short version of what each label on Chof means, and why it matters when you read a wrapper.
Chof is based in Amsterdam and tracks the Dutch bean-to-bar scene closely. See Original Beans, Heinde & Verre, The Chocolatemakers, Krak and other chocolade makers from the Netherlands.
A bean-to-bar maker controls the entire production chain from raw cacao bean to finished bar: they roast, winnow, grind, conch, refine and temper themselves rather than melting and reshaping bulk couverture bought from someone else.
A tree-to-bar maker goes one step further than bean-to-bar: they own or directly manage the cacao trees, the post-harvest fermentation and the chocolate production. Tree-to-bar gives the deepest level of origin transparency, but is rare because it requires presence in both the cacao-growing region and the production region.
Craft chocolate is typically small-batch, made by a maker who is hands-on with sourcing and production, with named origins and short ingredient lists. Industrial chocolate is mass-produced at scale by larger chocolate manufacturers, often with longer ingredient lists, vegetable fats or vanillin, and bulk-blended origins.
In Dutch, a chocolate maker is a "chocolademaker", plural "chocolademakers" or "chocolade makers". Chof lists Dutch chocolade makers from the Netherlands and Belgium alongside English-language entries on the same maker page.
Loosely, yes: people sometimes use "cocoa maker" to mean a bean-to-bar or tree-to-bar chocolate maker. Strictly, "cocoa" refers to the bean and its powder, "chocolate" refers to the finished bar. A cocoa maker can also mean a producer of cocoa powder or cocoa products rather than chocolate bars.
Yes. The Netherlands has a small but growing bean-to-bar scene including Original Beans, Heinde & Verre, The Chocolatemakers, Krak and other Dutch chocolade makers. See the Dutch chocolate makers page on Chof.
Each maker page shows the maker type (bean-to-bar, tree-to-bar, melter, private label or industrial). Direct trade claims, organic and fairtrade certifications are shown separately so they can be checked against the source.