From the monthly archives: "September 2013"

A Partner in Whole Foods

On By

Whole Foods gave us our first break. They took a chance on us. They let us, newbies to the food business, roll out our product in their entire north-east region at day one - the region that includes NYC, one of the most influential buzz centers in the world. We have never taken that for granted.

I remember reaching out to their regional buyer when our products were merely samples made in our blender because somehow, in my head, I had assumed that then was a good time as any to make contact. Perhaps it was my naivety or blind confidence. It was a brief exchange. “retail ready samples only…”. Doh! Of course! If they entertained every mom and pop’s kitchen experiment in a crockpot, they would never get anywhere. I responded with a simple – “Thank You. Understood.” I was grateful to have gotten a response – I took that as a positive sign! I knew we had ways to go before we contact them again – and that was a good thing. We had to get it right. It had to be perfect. You walk before you run. It took us over a year and several test runs later, we finally had “retail-ready” samples to send to Whole Foods. Being accepted felt like getting a special star on your class report from the toughest teacher in school. It was exhilarating to see how far we had come and humbling to realize that this was just the first step.

Every Whole Foods employee we have come across – from the buyers who support our demos by ensuring that our products are stocked on a timely basis, to the demo specialists who always cheer us on and keep us in the loop about various events that might be of interest to us to the employees who come sample our product and give us a friendly wink or stand next to us and tell customers “Hey! you gotta try this…it is awesome!” – they have been kind and supportive to us all the way. We could not have asked for a better partner on this crazy journey of ours.

Talking FairTrade

On By

When we started out, we were two foodie parents, with full time jobs, looking to make an awesome chocolate spread – the kind we craved and could not find. The thought process was simple – use the best ingredients you can find, shun the preservatives and artificial anything and create uncompromised chocolatey goodness that makes people smile. So we set out. However, as I started to research the main ingredient that defines our brand and product – cocoa – I quickly learned that there was more to this beloved treat than most people, including me, were aware of.

I came across a 2010 documentary film by Miki Mistrati and U.Roberto Romano titled “The Dark Side of Chocolate”. The film was an expose of the trafficking and exploitation of children on cocoa plantations in Cote d’Ivoire (also known as Ivory Coast), which accounts for almost half of the global cocoa supply. According to the findings of this documentary, many of these children are trafficked from neighboring impoverished countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso on the promise of good wages. It shows footage, mostly filmed via a secret camera, of children, some seemingly no older then 10 years of age, working on the cocoa plantations – some, allegedly, have never been paid. Injuries from machetes, exposure to pesticides and long hours of manual labor are just some of the hazards faced by these children. The US Department of State estimates that more than 109,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry work under “the worst forms of child labor,” and that some 10,000 are victims of human trafficking or enslavement. “Food of the Gods” seemed like a sadly ironic name for this luxury treat.

The irony does not stop there. More than three-fourths of all the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa – but the entire continent of Africa only accounts for about 3 percent of its consumption. Simply put, the children harvesting the cocoa more than likely have never tasted chocolate or know what the word chocolate means. Chocolate is an approximately $90 billion industry. Yet, the most widely cited cause for the widespread use of child labor has been the unfairly low wages paid to farmers for their crop which requires them to lower their cost of labor i.e. forcing them to hire children as a means to survive – the vicious cycle of poverty continues.

What made all this particularly interesting was that this was still a widespread practice, almost 10 years after the Harkin-Engel protocol had been signed by representatives from the cocoa industry – an agreement to work towards the elimination of the worst forms of child labor in the growing of cocoa beans from West Africa by 2005, That deadline had to be extended to 2008, and again to 2010. The latest goal under this framework is now cited as “reduce the worst forms of child labor as defined in ILO Convention 182 in the cocoa producing areas of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana by 70 percent in aggregate by 2020 through the joint efforts of the stakeholders.” So there is hope…

Chocolate and child labor should not exist in the same sentence. Child labor should not exist period. As human beings and parents, we could not make a product that is tainted by enslavement. This is why we choose to make our products with Fair Trade (and Organic) cocoa, sugar and vanilla. Fair Trade certification ensures that farmers receive a fair price for their crop, allows farmers to invest in in their families and wider community and strictly prohibits slave and child labor. Our motto “Taste Happy” – does not just represent happiness for our consumers, but hopefully also for the farmers and their families, because without them, our product would not exist.

Of course, this begs the question - Can the FairTrade system provide a 100% guarantee that no child labor was involved in the making of FairTrade chocolate? No, it cannot. Is it a step in the right direction? Yes. Unlike non-certified cocoa, which cannot be tracked to a particular farm, the FairTrade system audits the supply chain, giving them access to the farmer and their methods of production. Given their direct connection with the consumer and buyers, they are more likely to address this issue in a responsible manner. Case in point, in the fall of 2009, FLO-CERT (the independent international certifier for FairTrade) conducted an unannounced audit of the FairTrade cocoa co-operative in Ghana, Kuapa Kokoo, and suspended seven out of 33 of their cocoa farming communities after they were found to be using the worst forms of child labor and as such in breach of FairTrade standards. Following this, Kuapa Kokoo established a task force to respond to the findings of the FairTrade audit and developed a comprehensive new Internal Control System designed to track the activity of their members more proactively and with more precision. As a result, FLO-CERT lifted the suspension in January of 2010.

For a small start-up like us, who do not work directly with the farmers to source the cocoa beans, the FairTrade label offers us reasonable assurance that our cocoa is ethically sourced. While some may argue that it is not the perfect solution, we believe that choosing to do nothing, pending a perfect solution, would be far worse.

 

At my uncle’s farm in Karnataka, India - January 2010