A Canadian visitor to chocophile.com asked some very interesting questions about Callebaut and the confusion between Barry-Callebaut (the Belgian chocolate manufacturer) and Bernard Callebaut, the Canadian chocolatier.

Barry-Callebaut is now one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in Belgium, Europe, and the world. The company was founded in 1911 and was purchased by the Swiss company Suchard Toblerone in 1980. More recently they merged with Cacao Barry to form Barry-Callebaut, and Callebaut is just one of the brands manufactured by the Barry-Callebaut company.

As one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in Belgium Barry-Callebaut makes the chocolate that many Belgian chocolatiers (including Neuhaus) use.

Bernard Callebaut arrived in Canada in 1982 (presumably leaving Belgium as a consequence of the purchase of Callebaut by Suchard Toblerone) and started making confections. The chocolate that Bernard C (as we shall refer to the Canadian company henceforth) uses is made by the Callebaut company.

Callebaut makes something like 400 different formulas, we have been told, many of which are custom blends for chocolatiers such as Bernard C. Only some of these approximately 400 blends are available to the general public. The Chocosphere web site has a list of some Callebaut products and includes blend numbers in their catalog listings. For example, the ‘Thick Bittersweet Block’ (formula Belgian L6040-NV) is not suitable for dipping, enrobing, or molding. For some reason, the pellet version (Callebaut calls them ‘callets’) of the ‘Thick Bittersweet’ is a different formula: Belgian L6040-554 that uses vanillin instead of vanilla. [When you’re in a store and you see a bar of Callebaut in its original wrapper, the formula number will be on the ingredients label. However, unless you already know specifically what the formula number refers to, knowing what it is will not be very helpful.]

I am sure that in a side-by-side tasting you’d be able to discern differences between many of the Callebaut formulas, but the major differences between them might actually be based on their intended use and not necessarily different flavor profiles dependent on bean blends.

Nonetheless, the blends that Callebaut makes for Bernard C are made only for Bernard C, and are available nowhere else. Is that chocolate higher quality than other Barry-Callebaut blends? I’ve not tasted the couverture recently (I had some molded chocolates about three years ago) and I am unlikely to taste it anytime soon because the online shop for Bernard C is one of the worst shopping experiences I have ever seen (maybe it’s cause I use a Mac: see for yourself at [this page has been moved—9/23/03]).

The price for one bittersweet couverture offering is $12 but there is no quantity, and the price for the 2.5kg bittersweet couverture offering is $45. I think these are US dollars but they don’t compute. If the $12 product is 1kg, then the price is $5.45/lb, which is not bad, but the 2.5kg package costs $8.18/lb which makes no sense, it should be the same or less. So maybe the $12 is per pound—I don’t know and the price spread between 1lb and 2.5kg is too great. Either way, the Bernard C couverture is more expensive than most other Callebaut products, which tend to top out in the mid-$5/lb range, but can go for about $4/lb retail which means they wholesale for about $2/lb.

At $8-12/lb, the Bernard C couverture is up there with the more expensive couvertures from Valrhona, Cluizel, and others. Is it in that class? We haven’t tried it, and given the problems we already noted with their online store, we may never unless we pay a personal visit to Alberta, Canada, which is where they are located.

Having said all that, the upshot is that even though Bernard C is a Canadian chocolatier, he is not (as near as I can tell) using chocolate that is manufactured in Canada. As far as I can find out from the research I’ve done, the only Canadian ingredients that Bernard C is using is dairy products.

Is the Callebaut chocolate that Bernard C uses any better than any of the other blends Callebaut makes? It seems that it is more expensive than other Callebauts on the market, which may mean that they are using better cocoa beans and taking better care in all of the manufacturing steps, including conching.

But before I go any further, I want to clear up any confusion you might have about how to properly pronounce Callebaut. If it were a French name, the last syllable would be pronounced “bow.” However, because it is a Flemish name, the last syllable is pronounced “bot.” So it’s Cal’-uh-bot, with the first syllable pronounced as in California. There is only a slight emphasis placed on the first syllable and the whole thing is pronounced very quickly.

With that important business out of the way, the next order of business is to know that Callebaut manufactures chocolate domestically in the United States—in St Albans Vermont. Although the bean blends may be the same as those used in Europe (the chocolate is probably manufactured from cocoa liquor, actually), the milk and sugar used are different, which means that Callebaut chocolate manufactured in the US tastes different from Callebat chocolate manufactured in Europe. So, if you are fond of a particular Callebaut product, check to make sure where it comes from. If you’re used to the Belgian-manufactured product you won’t like it if the US-made product is substituted. Not that the US-made product is bad (I haven’t done a side-by-side tasting so it’s impossible for me to know exactly) or worse than the Belgian version, but it is different.