Catering to consumers' desire for affordable luxuries, specialty chocolate makers are getting their products to the masses--while trying to maintain their upscale image.

For some time Marie Read, a candy buyer for the 507-unit WaWa convenience store chain, has believed that American consumers are ready to see more specialty chocolate in the everyday places they shop, a hunch supported by the favorable reception accorded high-end chocolates like Toblerone, Tobler Chocolate Orange and Rocher during the few times each year she stocks those items. But what has really convinced her that she was on the mark was not happening in the stores, but in the warehouse, where the shipping and receiving crew was eating up a good bit of the Rafaello shipments before the white chocolate confections even reached the candy racks. Stores quickly ran out of the depleted supply of 99-cent three packs, so Reed had to order more.

"I wouldn't have thought those guys would go for that kind of thing," she said.

They're not alone. Though the United States is still the land of milk-chocolate-loving palettes, American consumers' taste buds are awakening to darker and less sweet specialty chocolates, just as they have to gourmet coffees, artisan breads and fine wines. So while the Big Three manufacturers-- Hershey, Mars, Nestl[acute{e}]--continue to dominate the mass-market confection shelves, once in awhile a Belgian truffle or a Swiss chocolate gets tucked in between those brands.

"The world is a smaller place," said Neil Leinwand, senior brand manager for Callard & Bowser Suchard's Toblerone, a Swiss chocolate with distribution in 110 countries. "Consumers are more aware of what is out there internationally, and they're asking for it."

In a booming economy, consumers are more willing to splurge on high-end goods like gourmet chocolate, said Jim Walsh, CEO of Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate, which has ambitions of soon opening 250 franchises selling a chocolate experience similar to what Starbucks does with coffee. "What you see during a boom is everyone wants to discriminate and leave the mass market," Walsh said. "They'll do that with cars, lifestyle and even in decisions about where they want to live. It's the same thing with chocolate."