Blog: Raising the bar - Shawn Askinosie and his chocolate

A Tuscan chef and inn owner writes an extensive blog post after getting introduced to Springfield-made Askinosie Chocolate.

Susan McKenna Grant co-owns La Petraia, a self-sufficient farm and luxury inn in the Chianti Classico area of Tuscany, one of Italy’s oldest wine-making regions. With chocolate being one of the few food items not produced on the farm, Grant was accustomed to buying Italian, Swiss or French chocolates to cook with and serve her guests. Then she met Askinosie Chocolate.

“How could a startup company founded by a lawyer from Springfield, Missouri, possibly compete with Europe’s legendary top chocolate houses?” she writes. “But I tried the chocolate Sherry (Page of Culinary Getaways) brought and I realized she was on to something.”

She placed a bulk order through Askinosie’s distributor in Sweden, and even invited Shawn Askinosie and his wife to Italy to learn more about the story behind the product. Askinosie also led a five-day cooking session at the inn and educated guests on his profit-sharing with his cacao farmers around the world.

“I realized Askinosie’s chocolate was not dissimilar to the best natural wines or the exceptional raw milk alpage cheeses produced only in the summer in the high pastures of the Alps. This struck a cord in me because it reminded me of what we are doing at La Petraia with our wine, and with the effort we put into raising all of our own animals, producing our own meat and growing our own fruit and vegetables,” she writes. “This chocolate, like our food, was alive and full of intense flavor that expressed something about the place it came from and the people who made it. Here was a product full of character and integrity that wasn’t trying to be anything but itself.

“The result today is a $9 chocolate bar. But you’re getting what you pay for.”

Read more from LaPetraia.com.