By “bean to bar” we mean that the final chocolate products we sell were transformed by us from unroasted cacao seeds (beans) into cocao/cocoa nibs, chocolate bars, brewing chocolate, or hot chocolate mixes.  We carefully select, sort, roast, crack, winnow, grind, refine, and temper small batches of cacao beans from around the world into craft chocolate to explore the world of unique flavors that await.  

Cacao has many similarities to coffee, which is what fascinated us.  Cacao is like coffee in that it is the seed of a fruit.  It is like coffee in that individual cacao varieties can have very unique flavor profiles, which can be enhanced or diminished by how it is handled throughout the supply chain and ultimately by the roaster and chocolatier.  Our goal is to explore and highlight these unique flavors, and at times find ways to harmonize the flavors into unique blends.  

Allergens: While our equipment is cleaned often and every time after processing chocolate products with allergens, it is possible that our bars may still contain trace amounts of dairy and tree nuts as all of our chocolate is manufactured on the same equipment.  Our chocolate products are soy and gluten free. 

USPS Priority Mail Shipping and local delivery: Alaska’s Cottage Food Laws have now changed and allow home-based food businesses such as ours to ship within Alaska.  We now only ship USPS Priority Mail.  We offer free local delivery if you are in Ketchikan.  If you are in Ketchikan, please just skip the shipping section unless you prefer your order mailed to you.  If you are outside Ketchikan and placing an order that consists of multiple products and the shipping amount seems higher than expected, feel free to reach out to us by email at info@ketchcoffee.com to see if we can come up with a custom shipping quote that will save you money.  What you will find is that shipping becomes more economical, the more bars we fit into one box. 

We do not recommend shipping chocolate in sustained outdoor temperatures over 60F: Shipping chocolate safely in warmer weather would require us to add additional costs for cold packs and insulated packaging, and would require USPS Express Mail expedited shipping at a much higher cost.  These are all things we want to avoid.  While tempered chocolate will not melt until in the low 90s Fahrenheit, the danger point for shipping chocolate is the unpredictable internal temperatures of the delivery vehicles.  The interior of a vehicle left in the sun gets very warm even in 65F days in Alaska.  If the weather looks marginal and you still wish to have chocolate shipped at your own risk, we highly recommend ordering with enough lead time to allow us to ship it Monday morning to ensure it gets to you in as timely a manner as possible.                

If you are tax exempt and have never placed an order through our website, please select the “My Account” button at the top of the website.  You will be prompted to login or register.  You will need to register for an account, which will ask you for some basic information to include your tax exempt identification number.  Once we receive and review this information, we have to manually approve the account for tax exempt status.  Our goal is to review and approve accounts daily.  Thank you for your understanding.