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When I hear that chocolate is produced in an unethical manner, I’d rather swallow knives than hear reasons why I shouldn’t enjoy one of my favorite foods. But with Valentine’s Day approaching, I thought it was time to face up to the labor issues around cocoa farming. It’s good to know that many of the quality chocolate companies are finding ways to introduce a lot more fairness into the equation.
When Magers goes to Ghana, he says the farmers always politely ask how he is doing, and then immediately ask “How are sales?”
Originally founded by a cooperative of cocoa growers in Ghana, the world’s second largest exporter of cocoa, Divine started out as a chocolate brand in the United Kingdom and launched in the United States in 2007. There are now 45,000 growers in the co-op, called Kuapa Kokoo; a group wearing clothes made with the co-op’s official fabric are pictured above.
Previously, the farmers had to contend with wildly fluctuating prices and unscrupulous recorders, the people who weigh and pay them for their beans. With the co-op, the farmers elect the recorder, so there is no incentive for cheating – he or she would just lose their job.
The co-op is comprised of farmers who live in many different “societies” or villages, and their fair trade agreement allows them extra money to create additional income generation projects for the villages, such as making soap.
“The first time I went to Ghana, what surprised me was how much the farmers take to heart their ownership in Divine. It’s a great source of price for them. They are being taken seriously by a business.”
Divine makes high quality chocolate, though not my all-time favorite (that award would probably go to Valrhona or the local company Tcho, which uses Fair Trade cocoa beans.) But it’s hard to argue with its business model.
If you’d like to learn more about fair trade issues around chocolate, Kitchen Table Talks is organizing a talk on February 22.
© The Bay Citizen, 2012
Peggy Scott
Hey - don't forget Kallari, available at Whole Foods and these guys think it is the best organic available:
http://www.alternativeconsumer.com/2010/01/19/kallari-chocolate-raising-the-organic-chocolate-bar/
http://www.kallari.com/chocolate.html
There is a great story about this company and the chocolate is yum.
Mark Pritchard
Here we have the ingredients of the perfect Bay Area foodie post: transgressiveness (chocolate is bad for you), trendiness (chocolate is a gourmet item, at least potentially), liberal guilt, and pop psychology (let's face our fears!). That the fears in question have not to do with facing the rubber truncheons of the Egyptian secret police, or the dank cells of Chinese prisons, or even the comparatively comfortable but difficult decision to, say, put your mother in a "care facility," doesn't make them easier to bear. They are fears nonetheless.
Right, then. How wonderful that the writer is able to assuage her consternation by discovering a free trade grower's cooperative in Ghana, owned and operated by colorfully dressed women (a close examination of the picture reveals they are wearing dresses imprinted with the logo of their co-op). And what's more, they are not wasting their profits on skin-lightening cream or anything Westerners might disapprove of; they are practicing democratic socialism at its finest: "Their fair trade agreement allows them extra money to create additional income generation projects for the villages, such as making soap."
Soap for the villages! It's a win-win for everyone.
As for the internal conflict of eating candy in the end, that's taken care of by the fact that it's a holiday. On Valentine's Day you may eat chocolate, while reading the inevitable newspaper and magazine features that assure you it's good for you in small quantities. And at the prices we pay for gourmet chocolate, small quantities are all we can afford anyway.