“I have a confession to make: I’ve never been obsessed with chocolate. Dark chocolate is often too bitter for my taste. But French Broad…made a believer out of me.”

— Sarah Maiellano, The Washington Post.

French Broad Chocolate

Asheville, North Carolina

French Broad Chocolate started with the same old story: Girl flirts with boy. Boy asks girl out. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl leave graduate school and buy an abandoned cacao farm in Costa Rica. Well, that last part is a little different…But that’s exactly what happened.

Dan and Jael Rattigan met at a wedding in 2003. Soon after, they packed their lives into a 40-foot vegetable oil-powered school bus, and drove south to Costa Rica. After a year of studying and playing with chocolate recipes, Dan and Jael hopped back in their bus to continue their journey as self-ordained chocolate missionaries.

Somewhere along the way, Asheville, NC, became their destination and in 2008 they founded French Broad Chocolates. In 2012, Dan and Jael’s dream of becoming a bean-to-bar chocolate makers was realized, when they opened French Broad Chocolate Factory & Tasting Room!