An analysis of two vessels unearthed in Central Mexico has shown conclusively that chocolate (the drink) was consumed as early as 1900BCE by the Mokaya People in the Soconusco area of what is today the Mexican State of Chiapas. Continue reading “Oldest Chocolate Found”
The Largest Chocolate Maker You Never Heard Of
Yesterday, Barry Callebaut released its sales figures for the first nine months of the current fiscal year. By all measures, it was a successful period. Sales volume amounted to 872993 metric tonnes of chocolate, a growth rate of 10 percent which the company claims is three times the growth rate of the global chocolate market as a whole. In its press release, the company also reported an 18.6 percent growth in sales revenue. Its chief growth areas were Europe and the Americas with Asia and the rest of the world lagging behind.
So who are these folks that are expanding at a time of record high cocoa prices and a global economic down turn? Continue reading “The Largest Chocolate Maker You Never Heard Of”
“Cioccolato Puro” in Court
Here’s another chapter in the label wars. In the U.S., we know all about industry power when it comes to food labels – GMO food is not labeled, country of origin is usually not on the label but dairies that don’t process milk from cows treated with rGBH have to put a disclaimer on their product telling the buyer that there is no difference between their milk and that from treated cows. The Europeans usually have been a bit more enlightened about labelling, at least when it comes to GMO and hormones. But they have their own label problems. Continue reading ““Cioccolato Puro” in Court”
Divine Chocolate Wins Ethical Business Award
“I want to change the world with chocolate and doing with chocolate that’s great makes it easier..” That’s what Sophie Tranchell, managing director of Divine Chocolate, told me a year ago during an interview for my book on cocoa and chocolate. It seems she’s well on her way. A couple of weeks ago, my favorite chocolate company won the UK Observer’s 2008 Ethical Business award. The paper gave the following citation:
Owned by Ghanaian co-operative Kuapa Kokoo (meaning ‘good cocoa growers’), Divine turns over £10.7m per year – and 45,000 people in 1,200 villages get a share of the profits and make a collective decision on how to spend it. The award – coinciding with Divine’s 10th birthday – celebrates this empowering trade model.
The observer also posted a video about Divine. Continue reading “Divine Chocolate Wins Ethical Business Award”
A Sad Day for the Children of Cocoa Farmers
I am very disappointed but I should have expected it. Yesterday, in a joint statement with the Chocolate Industry, Senator Harkin and Congressman Engel basically ratified the very limited efforts of the industry to combat child labor in the cocoa sector. So, for all practical purposes, the crucial part of the 2001 Harkin-Engel protocol, that the industry establish a “credible, mutually acceptable, voluntary, industry-wide standards of public certification, consistent with applicable federal law, that cocoa beans and their derivative products have been grown and/or processed without any of the worst forms of child labor” is dead. Continue reading “A Sad Day for the Children of Cocoa Farmers”
