Divine Chocolate

To Crave is Human; to Eat Chocolate is...

A Kuapa farmerThere are a select few who need convincing of chocolate’s necessity, and that it’s rightful position is just after hearth and home. Whether it be by dint of allergy or a woefully wrong palate, we mourn their state. For the rest of us, there is reason to rejoice. Just a bit more than a decade ago a group of farmers in West Africa, a region that produces 70% of the world’s cocoa, decided to try their hand at processing their harvest into chocolate, and the results were celestial. Divine Chocolate is the name they choose for their outfit, which is the first and only farmerowned Fair Trade chocolate company. Kuapa Kokoo, a collective of farmers in Ghana, West Africa, owns a one-third portion of Divine’s shares and its members occupy two seats of Divine’s board of directors.

School children at the Aboabo Camp, which is part of the collective’s workCocoa beans grow in bright yellow pods on a cacao tree, which is indigenous to the Amazon Basin and tropical areas of South and Central America. The Kuapa Kokoo Farmer’s Cooperative is responsible for 1% of worldwide cocoa exports. It takes one tree’s year-long crop to yield a single 3.5 ounce bar of Divine Chocolate. On average, Americans eat 13 pounds of chocolate a year, or the equivalent of a year’s harvest from 15 trees. At that rate, it is high time for farmers to get in on the bottom line.

Visit www.divinechocolateusa.com