Scharffen Berger is an American chocolate manufacturing company, which was a subsidiary of The Hershey Company after it had been acquired in 2005. Scharffen Berger was established as an independent Berkeley, California-based chocolate maker in 1996 by sparkling wine maker John Scharffenberger and physician Robert Steinberg. The company manufactures its own chocolate—as opposed to the more common practice of acquiring chocolate from other manufacturers—the first American company founded in the past 50 years to make chocolate "from bean to bar." Scharffen Berger primarily produced chocolate bars, using small-batch processing and focusing on dark chocolate varieties with high cocoa solid content. History The company's origins lie with founders John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. In 1989, Steinberg, a physician, was diagnosed with cancer and given a 50% chance of dying within ten years of the diagnosis. Steinberg promptly sold his practice and began exploring other career options. He read through a 600-page chocolate cookbook at the urging of a friend, which sparked Steinberg's interest in chocolate making. He began travelling to study the process of chocolate making. Steinberg toured the Bernachon chocolate company in Lyon, France, in 1993. He soon composed a letter in French asking Bernachon for an internship and was granted a brief two weeks with the small company. Steinberg returned from his internship in France and soon ran into John Scharffenberger, his former patient and neighbor. Scharffenberger, a winemaker and businessman, was selling his winery, Scharffenberger Cellars, and was exploring potential new business opportunities. Steinberg offered Scharffenberger a piece of French chocolate which he happened to have in his pocket. "Robert had this chunk of chocolate in his pocket that I think he'd been carrying for months. But it tasted better than anything I'd ever had," Scharffenberger later recalled in a 1998 interview with People Magazine. Scharffenberger and Steinberg soon partnered together to begin making chocolate. They began creating their first experimental batches of chocolate in Steinberg's own home kitchen using over 30 varieties of cacao beans. Their basic chocolate making instruments included a mortar and pestle, coffee grinder and a hair dryer to keep the chocolate viscous. They decided to name their new company Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker because Scharffenberger's name was already a known brand in the marketplace due to his winemaking. By 1997 they made the first batch in a small South San Francisco factory using vintage German equipment and basic ingredients including Venezuelan Criollo beans