François Pralus: From the Bean to the Bar in Roanne

Most chocolatiers start from couverture bought in blocks. François Pralus, in Roanne, in the Loire, starts from the bean. Dried cacao arrives from South America, Africa and the Indian Ocean, and is roasted, ground, refined and molded in Roanne into single-origin bars, most of them dark at 75%, that read like an atlas of cacao.

A pastry shop and a Praluline

The story begins with Auguste Pralus, born in 1920 in the nearby village of Mars, who opened his pastry shop in Roanne in 1948 with his wife Noëlie. In 1955 he was named Meilleur Ouvrier de France as a pastry chef and chocolatier, and the same year he created the Praluline, a brioche studded with pink pralines that remains a signature of the house.

The son and the bean

His son François took over in 1988. As a young man in the late 1970s he had trained at Bernachon, where his passion for making chocolate from the bean took hold. Under François, Pralus became a bean-to-bar maker: the workshop sources beans of the three great cacao families, Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario, from named origins, and controls every step from roasting to the finished bar. The range runs to some twenty single origins at 75%, a 100% pure Criollo from Madagascar, a few blends and a single milk chocolate, Mélissa, at 45%.

A plantation in Madagascar

The most personal chapter is on the other side of the world. François Pralus planted a 17-hectare plantation of Criollo cacao in Madagascar and harvested its first beans in 2012. Around twenty farmers work the land, with a school and medical care on site, which makes the house, for its Madagascar bars, a grower as well as a maker. Back in Roanne, 750 solar panels on the factory roof supply up to a third of its energy.

How we taste them

• Side by side: line up Madagascar 75%, Ecuador 75% and Peru 75%, and the idea of dark chocolate as a single flavor disappears.
• The woody, spicy Tanzania 75% with a glass of aged rum or a handful of toasted almonds.
• Madagascar 100%, pure cocoa paste with no sugar, for the curious, and Mélissa 45%, made with Madagascar Criollo, for those who prefer milk.

Read the full story on our François Pralus page and see the selection in the François Pralus collection.