My local grocery store ( Wegmans) in a larger New York city has at least 60 options of chocolate bars available. A local pharmacy in my tiny rural village with a small selection still has 12-15 unique chocolate bars. This is a different selection than the standard candy aisle.
There is no good mass market American chocolate, but there is readily available access to gourmet chocolates and pseudo gourmet chocolates.
Chuao Chocalates comes to mind as having frequent distribution and can be found in many places, Sees chocolates is fairly easy to find and has been around for a century,it gets mentioned on cooking shows so I think it has some prestige/familiarity to it.
Gertrude Hawk chocolates exists in many eastern us malls (maybe elsewhere), it's made not far from Hershey park. The samplers arent bad, never really gave it a proper try.
I happen to like Godiva chocolates which is owned by Campbell's soup company and also has a factory near Hershey's but that is maybe nostalgia as I often purchased them only around Christmas and rarely even consider buying them now.
Ghirardelli is American and Theos chocolate has some esteem.
By conventional meaning of mass market, I believe only Lindt and Ghirardelli qualify and fit the description of "good"
I recently tried Callier chocolate which I read had quite a prestigious swiss heritage, it blew away any mass market Hershey/Mars "chocolate" bars but it wasnt particularly exceptional compared to similarly priced artisanal chocolates already available in the local grocery store.
There is no good mass market American chocolate, but there is readily available access to gourmet chocolates and pseudo gourmet chocolates.
Chuao Chocalates comes to mind as having frequent distribution and can be found in many places, Sees chocolates is fairly easy to find and has been around for a century,it gets mentioned on cooking shows so I think it has some prestige/familiarity to it.
Gertrude Hawk chocolates exists in many eastern us malls (maybe elsewhere), it's made not far from Hershey park. The samplers arent bad, never really gave it a proper try.
I happen to like Godiva chocolates which is owned by Campbell's soup company and also has a factory near Hershey's but that is maybe nostalgia as I often purchased them only around Christmas and rarely even consider buying them now.
Ghirardelli is American and Theos chocolate has some esteem.
By conventional meaning of mass market, I believe only Lindt and Ghirardelli qualify and fit the description of "good"
I recently tried Callier chocolate which I read had quite a prestigious swiss heritage, it blew away any mass market Hershey/Mars "chocolate" bars but it wasnt particularly exceptional compared to similarly priced artisanal chocolates already available in the local grocery store.