Chocolove

Chocolove is a chocolate bar company that takes their social responsibility seriously. They take a variety of approaches towards ethics, social issues, and sustainability (see below), because they believe that each of these approaches addresses a different need for both the customer and the farmer.

Chocolate is a contributor to the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and has been since 2004.  The WCF stands to assist all cocoa farmers, irrespective of whether they sign up for a program; striving to organize and educate farmers on labor, proper use of soil amendments and plant treatments, crop management and post-harvest handling. They do all this with the goal to increase farmer knowledge and then productivity, which raises farmer income in a self-sustainable way.

The Growing Great Chocolate (GGC) believes that cocoa beans roasters and grinders have the responsibility to improve the farmer’s cultivation and post-harvest practices as a way to increase farmer standard of living. Also doing this ensures the future supply of quality chocolate. Farmers in the GGC program must sign an affidavit to the effect that they abide by International Labor Organization (ILO) standards for child labor, and if they are found to be in violation, are removed from the GGC program.

Chocolove funds projects at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cocoa Research Station.  Our funding is spent on a number of projects related to collecting, genetic fingerprinting, and preserving as many varieties of Theobroma cacao (cocoa tree) as possible.  Saving all the unique varieties we can find maintains genetic diversity, so that the farmer can plant good varieties, which can resist disease with minimal or no chemical use and provide good yields with fewer soil amendments.  Reducing inputs while also decreasing loss and increasing overall yield, raises farmer revenue.

They also provide their customers with a social and ethical commitment stating that Chocolate  does the following:

• Accepts responsibility to assure that all ingredients in our products have been sourced through ethical and socially responsible means.
• Works to uphold International Labor Organization (ILO) standards with respect to child labor in cocoa bean harvesting.
• Actively communicates our social responsibility philosophy.
• Commits to a social solution that works for the farmer, the interim handlers, our chocolate supplier, and our customers and consumers.
• Actively strives to get 3^rd party certification for all Chocolove products.
• Believes true long term sustainability is the role of business and is not the same as certification
• Retains the same great flavor and trust of our consumers.
• Continues to offer the best value

Provides good flavor at a reasonable price also results in good income for cocoa farmers.

There’s even more information here.