Small-Batch Story: Ragged Coast Chocolates

At Narrative Food, each of our gifts is designed to tell a story. We have worked with hundreds of vendors over the years, listening to their stories and sharing them with you. In this new series, we are honored to spotlight a few of our favorite small-batch makers in their own words.

Read our interview with Kate Shaffer, the Founder and Artistic Director of Ragged Coast Chocolates.

Tell us a little bit about you and the work that goes into your role at Ragged Coast.

I’m Kate, and I’m the Founder and Artistic Director at Ragged Coast Chocolates. I dream up and develop recipes, fine tune production processes, fix broken machinery, and take things apart and put them back together. I also write website and marketing copy, as well as cookbooks and articles for magazines and newspapers. Usually about chocolate, but sometimes about sailing on a schooner, or growing up the daughter of a single mom in Northern California. I don’t have children and I like cats. I have three of those and they basically rule my life and demand that I try and make the world a better place. 

Can you tell us more about the story behind Ragged Coast? 

Our little chocolate company twinkled into existence 17 years ago on the edge of misty spruce forest on the island of Isle au Haut, Maine. I started making chocolates in our tiny home kitchen, and in 2007, my husband Steve and I opened a tiny chocolatery and cafe in our living room. From May through October, we served chocolates and sandwiches to islanders and visitors alike, and in the winter, we shipped our growing assortment of confections to folks all over the world. This, at times, was more harrowing than you might imagine. Isle au Haut is an un-bridged island serviced by a passenger-only mail boat. We had to get shipments to the town landing by 8am each morning, and in the winter, that often required us to navigate icy and unplowed island roads and ease our truck down the steep landing to the ramp at the end of the dock.  We would hand haul every single package onto the mail boat (during Christmas, the number of packages could be 500 or more!). By 2015, we were living in an actual chocolate factory; every room in our home was either part of production or administration of our growing company. In June of that year, we packed up the whole kit-and-kaboodle and moved the business south to Westbrook. 

(We know you have relocated to Westbrook, but...) as fellow islanders, can you talk about founding a business on an island and how Isle au Haut originally inspired you?

Isle au Haut was my heart home, and when I dreamed up this business of making chocolates by hand, it was in an effort to tell the story of island life. I incorporated food that was grown there (apples, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc.) into my chocolates, and tried to present them in a way that expressed my love affair with the island, my husband, and my life there. 

With your commitment to using real ingredients to make real food, we would love to hear more about the ingredients behind your amazing chocolates. Could you give some behind-the-scenes stories about a few of your ingredients and the people who make them?

• Early ingredients from the forests and gardens of Isle au Haut.
• Your single-origin, sustainably-grown chocolate from Certified B Corp República del Cacao.
• Maine-grown herbs, fruits, vegetables, and edible flowers.

From the beginning, we have been committed to using as many locally grown/produced ingredients as possible. Back in the day, I would roam the island gleaning apples and cranberries, blueberries and raspberries. I had neighbors that grew black currants and pumpkins and rhubarb - and we used it all! I can’t tell you how many times someone would show up on my doorstep with a haul of fresh berries or veg’ and ask me if I could use it in a chocolate! Are you kidding? This was my absolute dream!

We still source from Maine family farmers and gardeners and neighbors today. All of our cream and butter is produced in Maine and New Hampshire. I have a handful of nearby farms that I buy all of my fresh produce from. And even now, a farmer might show up at the door to our factory with a harvest of something great (or weird) and ask me if I can use it. 

I visited Ecuador in 2019 and met the kind folks that operate Republica del Cacao, the manufacturer that makes all of the chocolate we use to produce our confections. They, in turn, introduced me to families that grow the cacao they use to produce their chocolate, the sugar cane, and the milk. It was an incredible experience, and they are the real deal. All the chocolate that we use from them is direct trade, and grown, managed, and sustained with heart and hope. 

Tell us about a favorite food memory.