Apprentice Chocolate Maker

About Us Dandelion Chocolate is a bean-to-bar chocolate factory in San Francisco’s Mission District.

We make chocolate from only two ingredients, cocoa beans and cane sugar, and travel to origins as often as we can to build good, trusting relationships with the producers who grow and ferment the beans we buy.

We’re always on the search for good cocoa beans, and now we’re looking for an Apprentice Chocolate Maker to help our production team scale up and craft our single origin chocolate.  About You You should love chocolate as much as we do, but you don’t have to know everything — we’ll teach you everything we know.

After adequate shadowing and hands-on training, you will join our production team in their daily routine — roasting, cracking, sorting and winnowing cocoa beans, then tempering and molding chocolate bars .

This is a physical job, but it’s a labor of love.

This is an opportunity to be part of the team working at our large factory on 16th Street where we are scaling up our processes and production, while striving to make some of the world’s best chocolate.

You must be comfortable working with machinery and willing to go with the flow as processes change and develop and to work independently as well as with our team of chocolate makers.

We prefer that candidates have worked in the food and beverage / culinary or manufacturing industry, as it helps with the pace and demands of this position.

This full-time role starts at $26.75 / hour with an increase after training.

We’re looking for someone who is eager to learn about chocolate, has a positive outlook, and likes to get their hands dirty.

Responsibilities Production :

• Learning and performing all steps of chocolate making : sorting cocoa beans, roasting, winnowing, refining and conching, tempering, grinding, and foiling, wrapping and labeling bars.
• Contribute towards our daily goals of sorting 550 kg of cocoa beans, roasting 8-10 roasts a day, tempering 7000 bars, and making sure we hit our target of 13 conches a week.

You can walk through the factory with a Senior Chocolate maker and be able to describe our processes and procedures per station and talk about how chocolate is made.  R&D and Quality :

You actively participate in Continuing Chocolate Education classes and stay curious about learning more about chocolate.  Sanitation & Maintenance :

You know how  to operate  all of our chocolate machines safely, and are familiar with all of our machine SOPs and order of procedures.  Team :

You stay curious and ask lots of questions, you are always willing to help and see projects through.  Requirements Availability :

Positive outlook :

Physical aptitude :

Must be able to stand, bend, squat, and use hands for tasks requiring both fine and gross motor skills.  Guest facing :

How to Apply Dandelion is growing and we are invested in employees who take ownership over their role and are interested in contributing in a bigger way with us.