History
According to The Wall Street Journal, in May 2011, Mast Brothers chartered the three-masted Black Seal, a 70-foot schooner built over 25 years by Captain Eric Loftfield,[8] to sail from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to the Dominican Republic in order to pick up 20 tons of cocoa beans. On June 14, 2011, the Black Seal arrived at the Red Hook waterfront in Brooklyn where a group of deckhands and makers of artisanal chocolate unloaded the cocoa beans from the schooner. It was the first time a sailing ship had unloaded commercial cargo in New York since 1939, according to one city official.[9]
In March 2015, the online magazine Slate published a critical piece about Mast Brothers, condemning their lack of involvement in the artisanal chocolate business community, and alleging that a few boutique chocolate retailers avoid carrying their products.[10] The company faced further controversy later that year when a Dallas-based food blogger, Scott Craig, challenged whether Mast Brothers had always been an in-house "bean to bar" operation as they claimed. Instead, he asserted during their first years of operation, they had melted down chocolate (known as couverture) from another high-end French supplier, Valrhona, mixing it with their own ingredients.[7][11] Mast Brothers acknowledged it used some couverture in addition to making their own chocolate in its early experimentations[11] but said that the practice had ended in 2009, and that none of their early products had ever been misrepresented as "bean to bar" offerings.[12]
Mast Brothers opened the first bean-to-bar chocolate factory in Los Angeles, California in May 2016.[13] The chocolate factory was located in a 6000 ft2 warehouse in the Arts District. In 2017, the company announced the closure of this retail space, along with their London location.
The company's Brooklyn building was located in Williamsburg.[14] Encompassing 3000 ft2, the chocolate shop was located inside a building that once served as a spice factory and today houses various small companies. The store closed in 2019 and the company opened Mast Market in Mount Kisco, New York later that year.[15][16]
Mast Brothers opened London's first commercial bean-to-bar chocolate factory which has since closed[17] on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, an East London neighborhood,[18] where customers could see the chocolate production process as well as buy chocolate products. As of early 2018, Mast Brothers had permanently shut their London retail location.[19]
