A Letter to Denman Island Chocolates

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

Denman Island chocolate bars are awesome, and I want to buy them in the future, but I had some questions. So I emailed them.

I really enjoy this application of the Internet. I think I might even like it more than Desktop Tower Defense. It takes less time, and is more satisfying.



Dear Denman Island Chocolates,

I enjoy your chocolate bars but am reluctant to buy them over Camino and other brands because while your product's chocolate content is organic (which is great), I'm not sure what labour practices it is made under. The bars say "product of Canada," but I assume that the cocoa is grown elsewhere. I couldn't find your company green-lighted here, and this site only looks for slavery in chocolate manufacture, not overall economic fairness. So I thought I should email you.

Can you tell me what labour (or community economic development) standards are in place in the sourcing of your raw materials? Have you made any plans to use fair-trade certified chocolate?


Sincerely...

Comments

[hundun.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's a pretty thorough response. And very honest. And fast! Thank you.

What do you mean in terms of lacking the market clout to dictate terms to your suppliers? Do you mean that you are looking for a fair trade supplier, as those available at present will not deliver a particular quality of bean because of a lack of demand?

[hundun.livejournal.com]

(their second response)
...That's right, except it's not a bean issue. The bottleneck is at the primary processing stage. This is where the beans (and sugar) are turned into "industrial" chocolate, i.e. chocolate used by secondary processors like Denman Island Chocolate. I really like the quality of the chocolate produced by our supplier, but they are slow to react to change and even sometimes resistant to it. But the good thing is that as we grow as a business, we can demand a different product. And there are more primary processors coming on stream, ones that are prepared to make the chocolate that their customers want. So the future is rosy; it's just the getting there that's a little grey. I fully expect to be using only Fair Trade chocolate within two years.