NōKA Chocolate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NōKA Chocolate is an American company, based in Plano, Texas, that markets itself as "a chocolatier specializing in gourmet chocolate gifts". [1] The company sells its products directly and through its primary retail partner, department store Neiman Marcus.[2].
The company's products are made from chocolate it says is sourced from four countries (Venezuela, Trinidad, the Ivory Coast, and Ecuador); it provides its customers with a "Tasting Guideline" in every box.[3] The company's founder says that its products are "not so much candy as a tasting experience." Given the prices charged for the chocolates, one newspaper has written, "NoKA is not for the faint of heart -- or pocketbook." [4]
Business website Forbes.com included NōKA's Vintages Collection among a listing of the world's most expensive chocolates, at $854 per pound.[5] D Magazine has called the chocolates "insanely expensive." [6]
In December of 2006, a Dallas-based blog published a ten-part series on the company's chocolate products that detailed the company's marketing claims and noted its refusal, unlike many other similar firms, to reveal the source of its couverture (the chocolate from which finished chocolates are made). It presented research on available couvertures that match Noka's descriptions of its product and used taste-testing to investigate the possibility that NōKA sells an essentially unaltered version of couvertures produced by the French company Bonnat. [7] Coverage of the series noted that this commercially available chocolate carries "a price tag substantially under what the credulous pay for Noka."[8]. "If you buy Nōka's 48-piece Vintages Encore box for $100, you're getting about the same amount of chocolate you would have gotten by buying one 100-gram Bonnat bar at a retail price of $7.50." The blog concludes that it wasn't shame about the quality of Bonnat's chocolate that kept the owners of Nōka from identifying their supplier. It was shame about Nōka's prices.[9]
Responding to the ten-part series, the company issued a statement on the site that originally hosted it. The statement, while maintaining the firm's position that "NōKA’s couverture is made to our strict specifications", did not deny that it came from the commercial supplier.[10]
Texas-based public relations firm DPK Public Relations became involved in the online controversy regarding NōKA when DPK's principal posted comments in NōKA's defense on a number of blogs shortly before announcing that his firm was representing NōKA.[11]
Discussing the online reaction to the blog's series, a representative of the Media Bloggers Association called it "a cautionary tale to a certain extent," adding, "Getting negative blog buzz, it could be a disaster."[12]
[edit] References
- ^ NōKA Chocolate - Home Page
- ^ NōKA Chocolate - Retail Stores
- ^ "Extreme Chocolates", Honolulu Star Bulletin, August 16, 2006. Retrieved January 3, 2007
- ^ Nichols, Katherine, "Expensive Tastes", Honolulu Star Bulletin, December 20, 2006. Retrieved January 3, 2007
- ^ Yara, Susan, "World's Most Expensive Choclates, Forbes.com, February 8, 2006. Retrieved January 4, 2007.
- ^ Gubbins, Teresa, "Love Bites", D Magazine, January 2007. Retrieved January 26, 2007
- ^ What's Noka Worth?, DallasFood.org, December 9, 2006. Retrieved January 9, 2007
- ^ Utter, David A., "Why the Mainstream Media Feels the Fear", Webpronews, December 28, 2006. Retrieved January 3, 2007
- ^ What's Noka Worth?, DallasFood.org, December 9, 2006. Retrieved January 9, 2007
- ^ Statement from Noah Houghton, president of NōKA Chocolate, DallasFood.org, December 31, 2006. Retrieved January 3, 2007
- ^ Keeney, Daniel, "Ethical Considerations In Posting Comments to Blogs", DPK Public Relations, December 30, 2006. Retrieved January 3, 200
- ^ Robinson-Jacobs, Karen, "What's at the center? Plano chocolatier, a Hollywood darling, contends with blogger who panned it", Dallas Morning News, January 24, 2007. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
