Ranger Chocolate Company is a Portland, Oregon bean-to-bar chocolate maker built around a deceptively simple idea: if you begin with exceptional cacao and treat it carefully, chocolate does not need much else. Founded in 2013 by George Domurot and David Beanland, Ranger emerged during the early years of Portland’s craft chocolate movement and has grown into a producer known for ethically sourced cacao, meticulous small-batch production, thoughtful collaborations, and chocolate that allows the character of the bean itself to take center stage.
For founder and CEO George Domurot, making things from scratch was part of life long before Ranger existed. He grew up in a family deeply connected to food. His grandmother operated a cooking school, and his grandfather was a butcher, exposing him early to the idea that good food begins with understanding ingredients and learning how to work with them rather than simply assembling a finished product. When Domurot later decided he wanted to build something in food and beverage, chocolate captured his attention. His curiosity quickly became technical: he loved chocolate, but he also wanted to understand exactly how it was made.
That curiosity led to experimentation. Before there was a polished Portland chocolate factory, the early Ranger team spent roughly a year working with small melangers and homemade cacao-processing equipment in a makeshift home setup. They learned the process from the bean forward, experimenting with roasting, cracking, winnowing, grinding, refining, and conching until raw cacao could be transformed into the smooth, aromatic product most people recognize as chocolate.
Ranger began taking shape as a company in 2013 and introduced itself publicly the following year. By 2015, the growing operation had moved into a dedicated factory in Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District, placing the company within one of the city’s most dynamic communities of independent food, coffee, beer, spirits, and culinary producers.
From the beginning, Ranger has approached chocolate as an agricultural product rather than simply a confection. Like coffee or wine, cacao develops distinctive characteristics according to its genetics, climate, soil, fermentation, drying, and handling after harvest. Ranger’s job is to preserve and reveal those differences rather than cover them with unnecessary ingredients.
Some of the company's single-origin dark chocolates are remarkably minimalist, consisting primarily of organic cacao and organic cane sugar. By avoiding excessive additions and carefully controlling roasting and refinement, Ranger allows the cacao to provide much of the finished chocolate's personality. Depending on origin, a bar can reveal fruit, floral, nutty, earthy, roasted, spice-driven, or deeply cocoa-rich characteristics without those flavors necessarily being added to the chocolate.
That approach requires patience. Chocolate making at Ranger begins with carefully sourced cacao beans arriving at the Portland factory. The beans are roasted to develop flavor, cracked, and winnowed to separate the cacao nibs from their husks. Those nibs are then ground and refined, transforming a coarse agricultural ingredient into increasingly smooth chocolate. Refining and conching can continue for extended periods as texture develops, volatile aromas change, and flavors become more integrated.
Ranger describes its approach simply: it makes chocolate from scratch. Roasting the cacao, producing the chocolate, forming the bars, and wrapping the finished products are all part of the process undertaken in Portland. That level of control allows the team to adjust its methods according to the cacao rather than treating every origin identically.
Equally important is where those beans come from. Ranger's guiding sourcing principle is “Always Fair Trade, or better.” The company works with organic cacao obtained through verified and transparent supply channels and emphasizes ethical relationships, environmental responsibility, and quality throughout its sourcing. For Ranger, responsible cacao and excellent chocolate are not separate objectives. The quality of the finished bar is inseparable from the people and agricultural communities responsible for producing its most important ingredient.
Single-origin chocolate provides perhaps the clearest expression of that philosophy. Ranger has worked with cacao from numerous origins, including Peru, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Vanuatu, Puerto Rico, and Haiti. Rather than attempting to make all of those beans taste like a standardized house chocolate, individual bars can be used almost like a tasting map, demonstrating how dramatically cacao changes from one growing region to another.
Ranger's connection with Haiti became especially visible through its collaboration with acclaimed chef Gregory Gourdet. The two worked together on a Caribbean-inspired chocolate bar using Haitian cacao alongside ingredients such as mango, ginger, vanilla, coconut milk, sea salt, and habanero. The project paired Gourdet's culinary perspective with Ranger's chocolate-making expertise while placing attention on ethical cacao sourcing and the farming communities behind the beans.
Collaboration has become an important part of Ranger's identity. Portland's unusually interconnected food culture gives the company opportunities to work with chefs, restaurants, bakers, coffee roasters, retailers, and other independent producers. Ranger chocolate can consequently appear not only as a finished bar but as an ingredient in pastries, desserts, beverages, confections, and products created by other Pacific Northwest makers.
The company's relationship with New Seasons Market is one example. Ranger has worked as a local production partner for the Portland-based grocer, illustrating how the company has expanded beyond traditional chocolate bars while remaining connected to regional food businesses. Ranger's broader lineup has included chocolate bars, confections, caramel sauce, granola, baking chocolate, drinking chocolate, seasonal specialties, and other cacao-driven creations.
Despite that expansion, Domurot remains closely connected to product development. Recipe development and research are part of his regular work, with new ingredients and new ways of making chocolate continually being explored. This experimental streak helps explain why Ranger can move comfortably between austere single-origin dark chocolate and more playful culinary creations. The common thread is an insistence that the ingredients and technique justify the finished product.
Portland itself is another essential ingredient in the Ranger story. Rather than treating the city simply as the location of its factory, Ranger actively participates in the broader maker community. The company has supported organizations including Friends of Trees, the National Parks Conservation Association, Bird Alliance of Oregon, and the Oregon Maple Project, reflecting an interest in conservation and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
In 2025, Ranger entered another major chapter by expanding into Portland's historic Olympic Mills building in the Central Eastside. The move more than doubled its space and production capacity. The building, originally known as the Olympic Cereal Mill and also called the B&O Warehouse, is a Portland Historic Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For a company committed to remaining rooted in Portland, moving a growing modern chocolate operation into a piece of the city's industrial history was particularly fitting.
Domurot has also become an advocate for Portland's craft chocolate community beyond Ranger itself. He founded the Portland Craft Chocolate Festival, which debuted in 2025 as a gathering of small-batch chocolate and confectionery makers, industry professionals, and chocolate enthusiasts. The festival was conceived not merely as a tasting event but as a way for makers to exchange knowledge, develop business opportunities, educate consumers, and strengthen the region's craft chocolate industry.
The festival returned in expanded form in 2026, bringing together more than 40 exhibitors alongside tastings, workshops, educational discussions, and competitions. It represents a natural extension of the philosophy behind Ranger: craft food becomes more meaningful when consumers understand who made it, where its ingredients came from, and why those choices matter.
That philosophy is ultimately what separates Ranger Chocolate Company from conventional confectionery. Chocolate here begins long before a finished bar reaches Portland. It begins with cacao trees, growers, fermentation, drying, trade relationships, and the characteristics of individual growing regions. Ranger then takes responsibility for the next stage, carefully roasting and transforming those beans while trying to preserve what made them worth sourcing in the first place.
More than a decade after its beginnings in 2013, Ranger has grown from experimental batches and homemade equipment into one of the established names in Portland's craft chocolate community. Yet its central idea remains remarkably straightforward: source exceptional cacao responsibly, make the chocolate from the bean forward, use ingredients with intention, and give the process enough time for the cacao to speak for itself.
For Ranger Chocolate Company, a chocolate bar is not simply something sweet. It is the final expression of agriculture, origin, technique, craftsmanship, and the people responsible for every stage between the cacao tree and finished bar.
