Green & Black Makes Toward All Fair Trade Certification

PARSIPPANY, N.J., (SweeterChocolates.blogspot.com)Pioneering organic chocolate maker Green & Black's today announces its commitment to move its entire chocolate range, worldwide, to Fair Trade – including the United States. Fifteen years ago Green & Black's led the Fair Trade movement by launching Maya Gold® – the first ever Fair Trade Certified™ product in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Green & Black's is the number one chocolate in the Natural channel(1). Green & Black's entire range is already organic, and thanks to continued expansion around the world, this move will make Green & Black's the world's leader in organic and Fair Trade chocolate. 

Read more>>

SOURCE Green & Black's

Sweet Earth Chocolates Niche for Organic Fair-trade Chocolates

Chocolate is one of life’s sweetest guilty pleasures. Luckily, the owners of Sweet Earth Chocolates in San Luis Obispo are doing their best to offer guilt-free ways to meet the needs of your sweet tooth.

The idea for the company began simply enough. Tom Neuhaus, associate professor of food science and nutrition at Cal Poly, and his wife, Eve, were looking for some sort of modest business to run after Tom retired from full-time teaching.

Something like Sweet Earth seemed perfect, combining Tom’s food industry skills with the couple’s passion for chocolate. The vision and scope of their retirement plans changed significantly after a trip to a cocoa farmers’ co-op in Ghana in the summer of 2003. 

Read more>>

Via Sanluisobispo.com

Valentine’s Day Top Organic Chocolate Picks

Since I have to be very careful with how much chocolate I eat these days – I am very picky when it comes to chocolate!  Here are few of my favorites since some are great as wedding favors and one, in particular, is great for Valentine’s Day!

1st – Lake Champlain Chocolates – One of the 1st I ever tried!  Loved them – They have some great packaging for favors as well!

One of my friends gave me the Vosges Organic Dominican Republic (DR) Chocolate Bar!  Obviously I dig it because my husband is from the DR, but also because his family owns a cacao farm!  I have actual tasted a cacao while in it’s fruit/nut form direct from the tree in both the DR and Nicaragua (amazing and not what you expect really).  The process of making chocolate is a strange one (not sure how they figured it out), but one that I am so grateful I learned about.  Vosges has some of the greatest chocolates in the world and they have quite a green mission statement – which you can read here.

Possibly the most ridiculously rich and most expensive natural organic chocolates that I have ever tasted are from Richart. It is a French company that says nothing about being organic or going green on their website.  However, I have visited 2 of their stores and have just never wanted to leave.  The idea of going to a chocolate store and comparing it to an experience of being at a museum is probably preposterous to you.  However – to me, when I eat chocolate – it is an experience.  I can taste the nuances in each type of chocolate I eat.  Richart is probably the most fascinating chocolate I have ever tasted in my life.  These are the chocolates that you give on Valentine’s Day!

Read more>>

Source: Elegance & Simplicity

Vegan Dark Chocolates Wei of Chocolate

Apparently my distaste for Rochester winters has been, well, apparent. I recently got an email from Lisa Reinhardt, a University of Rochester grad, telling me that she sympathized about Rochester winters.

Fortunately for the sake of the blog, she was also emailing to tell me that she was the owner of Wei of Chocolate, a chocolate company that makes organic, vegan, and Fair Trade chocolates, and would I like to try some free samples, two of which would be chili chocolate? Yes, please!

I got a bag of 6 dark chocolates with very (for lack of a better word) yoga-y names and claims to bring you warmth, insight, joy, etc. According to the company website, Wei of Chocolate will help you “take your experience of chocolate to a whole new level by experiencing the finest quality organic chocolate, infused with intentional blends of deliciously complex flavors designed to balance body and mind.”

Read more>>

Source: Zomg, Candy.