One of the first chocolatiers in India to work with the Indian cacao bean, Mason & Co was founded by Jane Mason and Fabien Bontems with an aim to create good quality, and unadulterated dark chocolate in India. Mason & Co. is a vegan bean-to-brand chocolate brand made with single-origin beans from south India, particularly grown on farms in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The chocolate factory is based out of Auroville in Puducherry. In addition to their incredible range of dark chocolate, what sets the brand apart are their artisans. The highly skilled workforce at Mason & Co consists of an all-female team of local village women who are trained in the art of chocolate making.
During my research on Indian chocolate I found out that Mason & Co was in fact an Indian brand, and I couldn’t help myself but reach out to Mansi Reddy, who is the Director Marketing & Partnerships at Mason & Co. She was kind enough to take me through the vision, and inspiration behind Mason & Co. “We don’t deserve a gold medal, they are genuinely the best people for the job,” Reddy said when asked about the all-women work force. She mentioned they have never had to import someone from the outside; the artisans have uplifted and upskilled fellow women in their local villages and trained them in the art of chocolate making. Saraswathi, who is now the factory manager, was the first employee of Mason & Co, and the incredible all-women workforce just organically grew from there.
Imagine my surprise and ignorance when Reddy mentioned how India has the perfect weather to grow good quality cacao. For a person with an insatiable appetite for dark chocolate, the fact that there aren’t any artificial enhancers or ingredients in the artfully, brown paper packaged bars is a thing of joy.