We live in a country that seems perfectly content with the Hershey bar. What inspired you to start a gourmet chocolate company?

Scharffenberger: You may say that, but almost everyone who visits Europe comes home with chocolate. We think Americans are following a path that was blazed by the wine business, the beer business, the cheese business, the bread business and the coffee business. Those various sectors have driven tremendous changes in what Americans like to eat.

What makes your chocolate taste different?

Steinberg: We make chocolate in which the cacao—the actual beans—is the most prominent feature. We allow multiple flavors of the cacao to come through, and we do not cover them up with sugar and other flavorings. From a marketing standpoint, we also want to make our process transparent, because we believe that the more people understand how our chocolate is made, the more they can appreciate its taste.

When you started this company in 1996, was this a passion that you were able to monetize, or did the business plan come first?

Scharffenberger: The passion came first. I’ve worked in food production all my life, so I love to make food that I like to eat. When Robert brought this idea to me, I said, "I eat chocolate every day, and it’s almost all European. Let’s try it. Let’s have fun. We’ll sell it to some of our friends in San Francisco in the food business, and have a nice weekend project." Well, it turned into something much more.

Robert, you were working as a doctor at the time?

Steinberg: I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 1989. I was told it was not curable, and that I had a 10-year median life expectancy. I wasn’t feeling well and I was not able to continue my practice. Although I wasn’t looking for anything else to do, I was open to a lot of things. I began taking piano and drawing lessons; I went to live in Italy for a couple of months. All of these things contributed to a sense that I could do whatever I wanted to do. I looked at my life and there was a hole. It sounds like a negative, but it was a positive. Relative to dealing with the illness, there were a lot of risks that I was taking. When John started talking to me about chocolate, I began pursuing it because it was so complex, interesting and challenging.

Who is your customer?

Steinberg: There is currently a huge interest in food in general, and we are part of that wave. Our customers are people who love to cook and explore various products for cooking. They are individuals who want the best of what’s available. Our product is sold in stores located in neighborhoods that are well-off, yet chocolate is an affordable luxury. You can buy it in small quantities and enjoy it for what it is.    

Do you call your product "gourmet" chocolate or "premium" chocolate? What’s the difference?

Scharffenberger: I think those are old-fashioned terms. Everyone tried to put a dollar demographic on it, like you had to be rich to enjoy it. They did that in the wine business, and it didn’t help very much. We just try to deliver high quality—it is a quality distinction rather than one connoting wealth. The people who have learned to like an espresso or a latte, or a glass of Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc—those are the kinds of people who like our chocolate.