Valentine’s Day isn’t the same unless lots of heart-shaped and cute chocolates are doing the rounds. But spread the love by making sure you pick eco-friendly sweet treats this year.
Fairtrade Chocolate
Recently, chocolate giant Cadbury decided to go fairtrade with their dairy milk slabs in South Africa. This played a massive role in eco-friendly chocolate in SA as approximately 14 million Cadbury Dairy Milk plain milk chocolate slabs are sold every year! The Fairtrade cocoa used hails from West Africa and manufacturing occurs in Port Elizabeth. By agreeing to be Fairtrade, chocolate companies empower farmers with financial incentives and resources for water conservation, reforestation and other environmental projects that benefit their communities.
Eco Choc Benefits
Going green when it comes to your chocolate choices is important because if chocolate has been made with organic views in mind, it won’t contain pesticides. Ultimately, the most romantic chocolate is that which is both delicious and good for you!
Fairtrade is also important when it comes to preventing child labour. Cocoa is an agricultural industry that often employs child labour, so by choosing to purchase Fairtrade chocolate you support the prevention of such exploitation and malpractice. When a product such as chocolate or coffee is Fairtrade Certified it also means that farmers are obeying environmental standards that are internationally monitored.
Organic Chocolate
Organic chocolate is sometimes more than the chocolate in itself; the processes used to manufacture the chocolate are also important. That’s where Honest Chocolate comes in. It’s a company based in Cape Town that makes hand-crafted chocolate using traditional chocolate methods, such as tempering the chocolate on granite slab table-tops and wrapping the chocolates in eco-friendly paper, so the entire process has its eye on being as green as possible. Raw cacao is used in the chocolate, which contains more antioxidants than the roasted variety. The chocolate is also free of preservatives, additives, dairy and processed sugar.
Bite into eco chocolate this year – you’ll feel better about your green efforts, which is sure to boost your mood and make you feel the love.
