Consistent
with our goals for our products to have a
positive societal impact (see
Our Mission) and
to help you have an adventurous & healthy
life (see About Us), Travel
Chocolate ™ LLC’s products are organic
certified and fair trade certified.
Organics
Organic foods are produced
according to certain production
standards. For
crops, (including cocoa beans) it
means they were grown without the use of
conventional
pesticides, artificial
fertilizers,
human waste, or
sewage sludge, and that they were
processed without
ionizing radiation or
food additives.
As we at
Travel Chocolate ™ have determined that you
would probably prefer to avoid eating food
with, as noted above “conventional
pesticides, artificial
fertilizers,
human waste, or
sewage sludge”, we went through
the steps to become a certified organic
company by the USDA.
Fair Trade
The harvesting of cocoa has a notorious
reputation for child slavery.
In the Ivory Coast, Africa “young boys
whose ages range from 12 to 16 have been
sold into slave labor and are forced to work
in cocoa farms in order to harvest the
beans, from which chocolate is made, under
inhumane conditions and extreme abuse.” (http://www.american.edu/TED/chocolate-slave.htm).
As we at Travel Chocolate ™ LLC believe we
should do our best to stop these abusive
practices, we embrace Fair Trade. So what is
Fair Trade?
A good
definition of Fair Trade starts with
a summary of a quote featured in Jacqueline
DeCarlo’s book, Fair Trade, A Beginners’
Guide, as follows:
Fair Trade is
a trading partnership based on dialogue,
transparency and respect that seeks greater
equity in international trade. It
contributes to sustainable development by
offering better trading conditions
to, and securing the rights of,
marginalized producers and workers.
In order to obtain fair trade certification
from reputable agencies, cocoa producers
must:
- not use child labor,
- not expose workers
to harmful pesticides (consistent with
organic)
- not use forced
overtime
- pay a fair wage.
As we think these are
important goals, Travel Chocolate ™ LLC went
through the steps to become fair trade
certified by TransFair.
