15 Fair Trade Chocolate Facts

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One of my standout memories from Grenada Chocolate Festival last year was visiting Grenada Chocolate Company in Hermitage, St. Patrick’s. The first bean-to-bar chocolate producer in Grenada, Grenada Chocolate Company was founded on sustainable values, with the intention of benefiting the whole community. Since it was founded in 1999 by the late Mott Green, Doug Browne and Edmond Brown, the co-operative has worked with local farmers to help them secure a fair price for their cacao beans. To this day, Grenada Chocolate Company pays 65% more per pound for cacao beans than the local price, attracting business from over 200 acres of local cacao farms.

Spending time at Grenada Chocolate Company, as well as at the other cocoa farms we visited while in Grenada, really drove home the importance of buying Fair Trade chocolate and supporting cocoa farmers and co-operatives like Grenada Chocolate Company all over the world.

Sadly, however, it also made me realise that the majority of us don’t really understand what Fair Trade chocolate really means and why it’s so important for us to buy it. Here are some Fair Trade chocolate facts that may shock you: in the UK, we munch our way through 660,900 tonnes of chocolate (11kg per person) every year, but Fair Trade chocolate only accounts for around 12% of sales. Isn’t it about time we started caring more about where our chocolate comes from?

So, when UK Fair Trade organisation, Traidcraft – the first people to sell Fair Trade chocolate in the UK – asked me to help them spread the word about their latest infographic on the history of chocolate and share some Fair Trade chocolate facts with my readers, I knew this was a cause I could get onboard with.

The history of chocolate

The origins of chocolate trace back to around 600AD, when the ancient Mayans farmed the first known cocoa plantations in the Yucatan and used the cacao beans to make a cold drink known as xocoatl (said to be where the word ‘chocolate’ comes from).

Fast forward to 1325AD, and the Aztecs had invented their own cocoa drink by adding honey, using the pearly outer layer found on cacao beans to make drinks and wines.

Take a look at some of the other key events in the history of the chocolate in Traidcraft’s timeline, below.

Fair Trade chocolate facts: all you need to know

1.Fair Trade chocolate ensures a fair price for the cocoa farmers who produce it. It also helps to make cocoa farming more sustainable, through what’s known as the Fair Trade Premium. The Fairtrade Premium is an additional amount of money paid over and above the Fairtrade price. It’s paid into a communal fund for the workers and farmers to invest in business or community projects.

2. Cocoa grows best in hot, moist tropical climates, often within 10 degrees latitude from the equator. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana account for more than 60% of the world’s cocoa, with Africa, Asia and Latin America following closely behind.

3. It’s thought that cocoa farmers are among the poorest people in the world. It’s not uncommon for them to earn less than £50 in a year.

4. Around one-quarter of the world’s cocoa farmers are women.

5. In the time of the ancient Mayans, cocoa beans were worth more than gold and were even used as currency.

6. It can be confusing when you hear people referring to cacao and cocoa; what does each term actually mean? Generally, cocoa is the term used for cacao that’s been fermented, dried, and roasted at high temperatures. It’s then pressed until all the oils are separated and the solids that remain can be turned into cocoa powder. Cacao powder is made in a very similar way, but at a far lower temperature.

7. The majority of cocoa farmers have never tasted chocolate. Beans are often shipped almost instantly, as if chocolate was created in these typically warm countries, it would melt! Many cocoa farmers will have never tasted chocolate in their lives.

8. Raw chocolate contains fewer ingredients than traditional chocolate – such as cocoa powder, cocoa butter, coconut blossom sugar, and raw fruit or seeds. Traditional chocolate can contain milk, soya, sugars, sweeteners, soya, and a host of artificial flavourings and preservatives. While Traidcraft’s Fair Trade vegan chocolate may not be raw chocolate, the recipe is kept as natural as possible – fair trade, organic, and free from GMOs, cheap oils and emulsfiers, artificial colours or preservatives.

9. Cocoa beans destined for use in raw chocolate are never heated above 42 degrees. In commercial chocolate-making, however, the beans are roasted at around 130-400 degrees.

10. Many countries have set up their own co-operatives to support cocoa farmers, like Grenada Chocolate Company. For example, in Bolivia, El Ceibo works with 50 co-operatives and reaches out to around 1,106 male and 194 female farmers from different ethnic groups. In addition, the majority of the additional money earned from their own Fair Trade cocoa is used to fund a programme that replaces cocoa trees in a bid to reduce deforestation.

11. Raw organic cacao is said to have 40 times as many antioxidants as blueberries. So, by eating Fair Trade chocolate, not only will you be doing good by others, you’ll be doing yourself a favour too.

12. You can buy Fair Trade chocolate and cocoa products in most UK supermarkets and many coffee shops. Popular brands include Green and Black’s and Divine.

13. In 2017, Co-Op supermarket became the first UK retailer to commit to using Fair Trade cocoa in all of its own-brand products.

14. Despite high demand, the price of cacao beans has plummeted in recent years. From 2016-17, the rate fell by around a third.

15. As Fair Trade chocolate has a higher cocoa content than regular chocolate, you don’t need to eat so much of it to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Find more chocolate-y content here:

• Grenada Chocolate Festival
• Chocoversum Chocolate Museum, Hamburg
• How To Make Chocolate

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