[secstate]

That's a fair point. Though I would argue that it's awfully hard to find an American chocolatier that doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Ghirardelli. Godiva is Belgium by origin, though their headquarters are now in NYC (Turkish owned, however).

If a corporation is looking out for shareholder value, producing chocolate with the least amount of the most expensive ingredient is a savvy move. Even more savvy when the bulk of your clientele doesn't know your chocolate is so bad. Thus, it's quite hard to find an American chocolatier that actually produces high quality chocolate. You can argue about the evils of gov. regulation till the cows come home, but the reality is that you can't really trust consumers because, as a group, we're really bad at communicating our desires and corporations are really good at informing our decisions.

Hell, Hershey's doesn't even temper half of their shit, that's why old Hershey's bars (or other chocolate candy bar) develop a white powder over time. That's the milk solids separating from the cacao. This doesn't happen in high-quality chocolatiers.