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Dandelion Chocolate, an artisanal bean-to-bar company based in San Francisco’s Mission District, has been kosher-certified by Sunrise Kosher, also known as the Vaad of Northern California.
The kosher certification came at the urging of Dandelion’s culinary liaison, Leah Hammerman, whose job it is to introduce chefs and other food professionals to Dandelion’s line of products.
In a recent blog post on the company’s website, Hammerman wrote that she looked into kosher certification at the urging of her mother, who raised her family in a kosher home, and “Mom’s always right, right?”
Hammerman guessed it would be relatively easy, since most Dandelion products have only two ingredients: cocoa beans and organic cane sugar.
The certification applies to all of Dandelion’s one- and two-ingredient cocoa bean and chocolate products (single-origin chocolate bars, cocoa nibs, ground chocolate, chef’s chocolate, whole roasted beans, single bottles of hot chocolate mix and soon-to-come chocolate chips). It does not extend to Dandelion’s café nor its baked goods.
While the packaging doesn’t reflect the kosher certification, the certificate is now on the company’s website.
“One might say we’re celebrating a ‘bar’ mitzvah,” Hammerman wrote. “My mom and I say mazel tov to that.”